Finding Fate
by lucyhoneychurch
Summary: Sometimes fate can be found before its time...
1. Prologue

Title: Finding Fate  
Author: Lucy Honeychurch  
Rating: The first chapter is questionably 'R' ish but the rest of it's going to be rather Pg-13 with maybe one more chapter of 'R' ishness  
Disclaimer: I Own Nothing  
Spoilers: I'm sticking with what's happened in 'Smallville' until Season 5, going with the assumption that there's going to be Clana sex/dating (yuck...) and using what the spoilers from Season 5 have been saying. This story takes place in Lois and Clark's 3 year of university (I'm going with the assumption that they're both sticking close to Smallville and therefore attending the local school as opposed to Met U). I'm also going to be tapping into some of the Superman lore concerning the Fortress of Solitude.  
Summary: Sometimes fate can be found before its time...

**Prologue: Hands**

They stumbled into his bedroom, the open door taking the brunt of their lust as he slammed into it, not recognizing their luck that his parents were out of town for the weekend. They hadn't been drinking (something that she had once told her cousin would have to have happened before she'd even contemplate thinking about doing this with him…) but he felt like they had been.

He was lightheaded, the blood normally residing in his head going south at a remarkable rate since they had began kissing in the loft a mere fifteen minutes ago. Neither knew who had started it, and quite frankly he thought that, if asked the question, they would both blame the other.

It hardly mattered right now anyways.

She had been the one to insist they come inside, having told herself that she would never be seduced in a barn although with him, she somehow thought she'd enjoy the experience…

Thoughts focussing on one thing, she began to remove his clothes, starting first with the plaid shirt that seemed to be a staple item in his wardrobe, then his t-shirt. She smiled as his hands came up to take off her own shirt, slipping the simple tee over her head and hands now moving to remove her bra. And, although the idea sickened her (she moved on almost as soon as she had the thought) she thought she might owe his former girlfriend a thank-you for the practiced skills he had shown thus forth. She was tingling in places she didn't know she had and they hadn't even gotten past the clothed portion of what was looking to be a very eventful-and unexpected- evening.

She felt him catch the clasp to her bra, easily undoing it and pulling it from her arms, all the while kissing her as if he would never be able to kiss her again.

The fact of the matter was that he probably wouldn't. This was wrong after all. Forbidden. Crossing so many lines that they were now in uncharted territory. They weren't even friends, just….she searched for the right word but couldn't find it. Her cousin would be so disappointed in her. She WAS a journalism student after all. This was supposed to be her area of expertise but he….he was driving all words from her and that was something that she had never experienced.

As she blindly looked for a word, her hands began to make patterns on his chest and back…

Revelling in the feel of her hands on his chest and back, combined with the equally wonderful feeling of her body against his, he dipped a hand down to the band where her jeans met her naked stomach, pulling her closer as he did so.

This was going faster than she thought it would. Not that she had thought about this before because she hadn't.

Not purposely anyway.

After all, it was hard not to put the image of naked male out of a girls head when that had been how she met him in the first place. It was true what they said: first impressions were everything and he had certainly made an impression on her.

With a forwardness that even she didn't know she had in her, she reached down, undoing her jeans and backing away from the man standing in front of her. Eyes contacting his, she pushed them down, her underwear going with them.

They both paused for a moment, knowing that this was about to happen but both unwilling to break the lull of lustful eminency that had fallen over his bedroom.

In the end, it was she who made the decisive move.

As always.

She walked forward, stopping when she was in front of him and keeping eye contact as she began to take his pants off.

"Are you sure?" He whispered, and her heart contracted ever so slightly at his concern. She inwardly hit herself for it. Those kind of feelings were still forbidden and that line was so far out there that it might as well be in outer space.

She smiled wryly, undoing the final button of his jeans and letting them drop.

"Does that answer your question, Smallville?"


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Sunday Morning**

Lois Lane winced as a ray of sunlight entering Clark's bedroom hit her square in the eye. She rolled away from it, burrowing deeper into her pillow. Sleep still clouding her mind, it took her a moment to realize that that pillow was warm and strangely Clark-shaped.

"Lois?" Clark murmured, looking down at the stirring woman on his chest. He had been awake for awhile, thinking about what had happened last night.

"Hey Clark," she mumbled into his chest, tamping down all the feelings that she shouldn't be this comfortable with him the morning after what she knew was a monumental step for them. She just wished she knew what kind of step it had been. Indeed, she was more confused than anything right now. How were they to proceed after last night?

Clark sighed, taking her mumbling as a sign of reluctance to acknowledge what had happened the night before. Was she upset? Embarassed? He would give anything for a strong feeling from her right now. Anger he was used to and could handle but this feeling of awkward complacency that he was feeling come off her in waves was something new. Lois Lane was not complacent. She was reactive, hostile and rude.

"Is this situation as weird as I think it is?" Lois broke the silence, realizing from his sigh that he was going into a good brood. That was never a good thing. He tended to over think things when he brooded which then led to more brooding.

He rose an eyebrow, looking down at the face that was now looking up into his. He nodded. "Yeah. Just about."

"So what are we going to do? We can't just lie here all day. Eventually your parents are going to come home and…."

He looked at the clock, knowing that his parents were getting home at 11. It was now 10:58. "Oh shit," he sat up, forcing a confused Lois to the mattress, and got out of bed.

"Well this is a new development. Since when does Clark Kent swear?" she teased.

His jaw set as he reached for the pants that that she had discarded for him the night before, slipping them on and meeting her stare. "Since I realized what time it is."

She sat up, annoyed at the tone that he had taken with her. She felt them slip back into what they had been a mere 24 hours ago, away from the Lois and Clark they had been last night. "What does it matter? They're gone for the weekend, aren't they? And I really don't see them returning until late toni…." Her eyes widened as she heard the front door slam.

"Clark! We're home!" Martha Kent's voice rang out like an alarm in Lois' brain.

Clark went into superspeed mode in front of her, rapidly getting dressed before kneeling next to the bed. "We were studying last night, it was really late and you decided to stay over. I let you have the bed because that's what I always do."

She glared at him. She knew that if he was the one who had to deliver that kind of lie that he would mess it up. Heck, if he had to lie at all to his parents he'd screw it up. "That's the best excuse you can come up with, Smallville?" She got out of the bed, grabbing her underwear from the floor and putting them on before reaching for her bra. "Cause I don't think that's gonna work. I mean, we may go to the same University, and we also may be in the same program but whenever we study together, we go to the Talon where some one can intervene should we feel the need to kill each other which, I've got to tell you, happens a lot." She finished with the bra, leaning down to pick up her jeans and quickly slipping them on. "Not that I could. Although I could always use one of those green rocks on you…"

He rolled his eyes at Lois' banter. She had found out about his past two months ago when they had been investigating LuthorCorp's newest use of the meteor rocks on some unwilling tests subjects. Lois, as usual, had gotten them trapped and about to be found-in one of the labs this time- and he had had to get them out before either the guards showed up, or the Kryptonite gas that was stored in the lab for use on the test subjects was released. That had been Lois' fault too. Clark had noticed since the day he met her that she shouldn't be allowed to touch random buttons, let alone big red ones.

His super-hearing picked up the sound of his mother walking up the stairs. He figured he had 30 seconds at the most to either get himself out of the room or come up with some other excuse as to why he and Lois were alone in his room, and Lois was half-dressed. His Mom was going to see through any excuse they came up with if he stayed there. He

ran a hand through his hair in frustration, all the while trying to pick up through his super-hearing where his Dad was. After all, if his father found him in the barn doing chores and Lois in his room, half naked, there would be no reason to believe that something monumental had happened between the two of them the night before, right?

It was now Lois' turn to roll her eyes at him. Seemingly reading his mind, she put her shirt on and looked him straight in the eye. "Go. She'll buy it if you're not here. Just….do some chores or something."

"You sure?" he asked and for a moment it was as if they had gone back in time to last night.

She nodded, lowering her head so that he couldn't see the blush that was threatening to overtake her entire face at the memory. "I can't lie to your Mom with you in the room. Not about this anyway. It's too…."

He tilted her head up, understanding without her finishing what she meant. He was confused too, not so much with the fact that they had spent the night together, but that he had enjoyed it so much. He kissed her softly, unwilling to go without acknowledging what happened last night had had some sort of affect on him too. "We'll talk later, Lois. I promise."

She met his eyes, sighing while internally putting on her game face to get through the next few hours of lies that she and Clark were going to have to spin for his parents. "I know."

And with that, he super speeded out of the room just as Martha Kent began to open the door.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Lying**

"Lois?" Martha furrowed her brow in confusion as she noticed who was standing in her sons bedroom, bed unmade beside her. "What are you doing here?"

"I spent the night. I hope you don't mind…" Lois said, an awkward smile on her face as she told herself to stick to half truths through this conversation; lies were too hard to keep track of. She sat down on the bed, reaching over to her shoes that were lying neatly next to the bedside table. She sighed in relief. It was times like these that she appreciated Clark's superpowers. He must have done this when he was getting dressed. "Clark and I were studying in the loft and it was really late so…"

Martha nodded. This had happened before, although not since last year. This was a plausible situation that Lois was laying out before her but still, she couldn't help but feel that she was missing something. Lois wasn't herself and, while Martha couldn't place exactly where the difference lay, she still knew that something else was going on with the woman that she had come to regard as a daughter. Seeing that she was making Lois uncomfortable though, she immediately felt sorry for it and moved on. Whatever was on Lois' mind that was making her so different today was apparently an uncomfortable issue for her, and so she wouldn't press it. Not today anyways. "Where's Clark? He wasn't downstairs on the couch."

"Oh you know Smallville," Lois mused as she put on her last shoe, standing up and turning to make the bed. "Always the Boy Scout. He's probably out doing chores or something. "

"You're probably right," Martha came over to help Lois with the bed, tucking the sheet corners at the bottom in and completely missing the sudden look of panic that crossed Lois' face at her actions.

"Mrs. Kent, it's alright. This isn't a Motel 6 and you're not my maid. I can make my own bed," she sped up her actions in order to finish the job before Martha could. Somehow she didn't think that Martha would appreciate the fact that she was helping to make the bed where Lois and Clark had thoroughly debauched each other only hours ago.

"Lois, it's fine. You're not a guest, you're family," Martha smoothed down the last corner of Clark's bed and straightened. "Now how about some brunch? Are you hungry?"

Lois forced a grateful smile on her face. She was ravenous but having brunch with the Kent's was probably the last thing she should be doing right now. Something about last night had shaken her to the point that her ability to lie had been shut off and for that reason, the only conclusion she made about how to proceed this morning was that she had to get out of here. NOW. She hated this and at the moment, she hated Clark for abandoning her to lie for him despite the fact that she had been the one to send him out of the room in the first place. Her mind scrambled for a good excuse, anything to let her get out of having to make chitchat with the kind woman in front of her who she had come to regard as a mother. She gulped, forcing herself to reply so that Martha would stop staring at her as if she had two heads. "No thanks Mrs. Kent. I'm actually not that hungry and I have to get back to the apartment. Lucy's calling me today and I need to be there to take the call."

"Oh," Martha murmured, buying the explanation for the time being. Maybe she was having problems with her sister. That would explain the edginess that Lois was exhibiting. Indeed, the last time that she had seen Lois this unsure of herself was when her sister came to town years ago. "Are you sure?"

Lois nodded. "Um-hm. I've got to get home. Thanks for the invite though."

And with that, Lois practically sprinted out of the room, leaving Martha to ponder what was wrong with her.

"Lois!" Clark called, watching as she came out of the house looking like a pack of wolves were at her heels. "What's wrong?"

She stopped in the middle of the driveway, looking at him incredulously. "What's wrong?" She lowered her voice, knowing that the way she had exited the house had probably spurred Mrs. Kent to follow her downstairs and therefore was able to hear her yelling in the driveway. She sighed, trying to get her emotions under control as she addressed Clark's question. "What's wrong is that I just had to lie to your mother and I hated it."

"I'm sorry," he murmured, starring down at his hands before looking up to meet her eye. "How'd you do by the way?"

Lois' mouth curled up in disgust, eyes narrowing. She didn't even honour the question with a response, choosing instead to walk away.

"Lois," Clark inwardly kicked himself as he reached out and grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him again. "I shouldn't have asked that…"

"No, you shouldn't have."

"Can we…" Clark began hesitantly, "Maybe go somewhere and talk? I mean, we didn't really finish what we started earlier and I think we need to."

She nodded, conceding that-at least on this issue- Clark had a point. "Sure. But right now I think I need to get home. At least for a little while. I need a shower at the very least. Your Mom….she thinks that I have a phone call from Lucy coming in and," she sighed. "I think that you need to have brunch with your parents anyways."

"Well let me at least drive you home," Clark offered.

Lois shot him a look, smirking. "We drove my car out here, remember? After…"

"Yeah," Clark suddenly developed an interest in the tops of his shoes as he looked down, remembering the lead up to the evening before. "Can I just say for the record how my I'm beginning to regret telling you my secret?"

"You mentioned that yesterday, rather loudly if I recall correctly," Lois crossed her arms, remembering how he had had to save her life from yet another meteor freak. The details of the encounter no longer seemed important, although she was sure that, for Clark, they probably were still very important. That was the problem with Clark, he always took things so seriously. The whole encounter with the freak in question hadn't even resulted in an injury for her and so couldn't be considered a big issue. She was fine and what's more, the meteor freak was now safely locked up in Belle Reve with the rest of them.

"Well, ever since you found out about…my gifts….you've been taking more risks, especially when it comes to your investigations into what happens in this town. Am I just imagining this or is that what you've been doing?" Clark said quietly, breaking Lois out of her reminiscences.

"Well, I know you'll always be there to save me," she said sarcastically before narrowing her eyes at him in resentment for what he had just said to her. Contrary to whatever he believed about her, Lois Lane did not seek out danger. It just found her... "Honestly Smallville. Do you really think that low of me? I don't look for trouble and I don't put myself into situations where I might possibly be killed purposely. It just sort of happens."

"And so did last night," he murmured quietly, almost under his breath but not quite.

She opened her mouth to continue the conversation, but stopping abruptly as she took in the sight of Jonathon Kent walking towards them. "Hi Mr. Kent. How are you today?"

Jonathon eyed the pair in front of him suspiciously. Something was up. They were bickering, which wasn't anything new between the two of them but…something else was going on beneath the surface, something that he couldn't quite place a finger on. He and Martha had come home that morning to a quiet house. This in itself wasn't anything they weren't used to. After all, Clark, despite the fact that he tended to throw wild parties when they went out of town, was a quiet man by nature. No, it was the fact that Lois Lane had apparently spent the night last night and he knew for a fact that she was anything but quiet. Although maybe she had just been upset over her sister…whatever it was, at any rate, he and Martha would get to the bottom of the matter. "You two want to come inside for some brunch? Martha made pancakes…"

"No thanks Mr. Kent." Lois said succinctly, meeting Clark's eyes meaningfully. They would talk later. "I should get going. Lucy's going to be calling me soon and I need to be at home for that."

"Sure Lois," Jonathon sighed, looking disappointed. "Don't be a stranger, alright? This farm is your home too. After all, you did live with us…"

"For a year and a half," Lois finished his sentence for him, a smile on her face. "And for months at a time afterwards when I wasn't in Geneva trying to figure out my sister's crazy life. I know. I've just been busy." She looked at her watch, faking a look of shock. "God is that that the time? She's going to be calling any second…I'll see you later Clark?" she called, walking away toward her car, not looking back.

Clark sighed, nodding in acknowledgement of the impending 'talk'. He really wished that she had stuck around for whatever it was that they might have had to say to each other but, on the other hand, he wished he could have gone with her. Brunch with his family seemed rather low on his lists of wants at the moment.

"Clark?" Jonathon watched as Lois' car pulled out of the driveway. "You alright, son?"

Clark simply nodded, "Yeah Dad. I'm fine but if it's alright with you, I'm going to skip brunch today. I'm not really hungry and I still need to finish my chores."

Jonathon Kent furrowed his brow in confused. This was completely unlike Clark. It wasn't like him at all to turn down food. Something was up and he had the strangest feeling it had to do with Lois.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Awkward Conversations**

It was evening again before they got to that talk. Indeed, it was 9 PM when Clark saw her pull into the driveway of his house and make her way up to the barn. He hadn't wanted to talk here-he could still practically taste what had begun to happen between the two of them in this very loft-but Lois had told him that this was probably the best spot for a chat when he had dropped by the Talon earlier. His Mom had been there and Lois had pointed out that Martha would know something was up if the two of them were to sneak up to her apartment.

How they had gotten into this entire position was strange to Clark. He had never had such a strong emotional response from having to rescue Lois from some of the crazy situations she got herself into but yesterday's had scared him so much that they had gotten back to his place and….stuff had happened. Big stuff. Stuff he hadn't meant to happen and he was pretty sure she hadn't either. They had argued like they had never argued before, yelling at each other so loudly that he knew that if his parents had been there they would have been up in the loft trying to break up the fight. Eventually, as always, the yelling had calmed and they had sat down on the couch-the very couch that Lois was now sitting on-and began to talk. Rationally was too optimistic of a word for the tone of the whole thing (sarcastic banter better described it) but in the end, he thought that things had been said last night that had dramatically cleared the air between them-at least where yesterday afternoon's 'adventure' had been concerned.

It was true what he said earlier-he DID regret telling her about his powers sometimes, with an emphasis on the sometimes. It didn't happen often…most of the time it was nice having Lois know his secret but sometimes, just sometimes, she seemed to take advantage of the knowledge that Clark would swoop in and save her. Yesterday had been a prime example of this.

She and Chloe (who was in Smallville for the weekend to visit her Dad) had been doing some investigation into yet another victim of the first meteor showers lingering effects and had, as usual, stumbled into trouble. This had left Clark to track them down and rescue them. Of course, both women had vehemently denied that they needed rescuing after everything was over but Clark had simply rolled his eyes at this response. They never NEEDED rescuing, in fact, he knew that if left to their own devices 99 times out of 100 Chloe and Lois could very well extricate themselves from the situations they got themselves into but in this case he had been needed and it had been a good thing he got there when he did. They had all gone to his place yesterday after the 'unneeded' rescue to clean up and recuperate and for him to do some serious talking with them. They were taking too many risks and he didn't like it. Neither woman had seemed to care, choosing instead to paint Clark as the overprotective father figure in their rebellious and sometimes reckless quest for the truth.

Chloe had left early, leaving them alone. He still couldn't decide whether or not this had been a good thing. Hindsight being 20/20…well, he would probably make his decision about the whole thing after his talk with Lois. He really didn't feel comfortable voicing his feelings about the entire thing until she had had her say.

Lois and Clark had been left alone in the empty barn, too absorbed in the fight they were having to even contemplate Lois leaving with her cousin and so Chloe had simply left them to it. The truth of the matter was that they both enjoyed the fighting. It was fun to bother the other, mentally stimulating and above all, a staple in their friendship.

Contrary to popular belief, they did consider what they had a friendship. After going to Central Kansas together for 3 years, taking the same classes and working together on the same projects, they had gotten to the point where-at least academically- they were on the same page. This alone promoted quasi-positive feelings for the other person. After all, a certain closeness was inherent when two people worked so closely together and routinely succeeded. Chloe had once told him how weird she thought this was. She couldn't figure out how they could work so well together on various projects and yet still keep the anger going the way they did.

Clark thought he could probably give her an answer to that one now.

He turned around, hearing Lois climb the last stair into the loft and watched as she took a seat on the far end of the couch away from him.

She looked up at him expectantly, hoping against hope that he would take the lead in this conversation because she certainly didn't want to…"Ok. I'm here. Where do we want to start?"

Clark cleared his throat, walking away from the window to sit on the couch next to Lois-the other side of the couch. It seemed that both wanted to distance themselves from both the other, and the issue itself. He paused, not knowing what to say.

Lois rolled her eyes. He was being hesitant again and she abhorred hesitance. So much for letting him take the lead. She should have known better by now, "How about the beginning then?"

He turned an annoyed look on her, having been about to suggest that, "I was going to get to that. Why do you always have to be so forceful?"

"Why do you always have to be so thoughtful?" Lois returned the look. "And you didn't seem to mind my forcefulness last night."

"That was different…"

Lois nodded sarcastically. "Right. So it suits you for me to be forceful when we're having sex but when I want to have a chat with you about how dramatically screwed up our relationship has become in the last 24 hours you accuse me of being too forceful." She crossed her arms across her chest, "You know Smallville, for an alien you're certainly taking on a lot of the characteristics of our men here on Earth."

Clark's jaw locked angrily and he tried to tamp down the sharp rebuttal to Lois' accusations. That wasn't what he had been trying to say at all but once again, she had taken and twisted them into something completely different. "Look Lois, if you don't want to talk about this, that's fine but I would really like it if you would try to be civil to me right now. We still have the school year to get through and I really don't feel like breaking in another partner so late in the semester."

Lois bit her tongue to prevent another snarky comment from coming out of her mouth. As much as she didn't want to admit it, he had a point and they still had to seriously discuss what had happened last night and what sort of ramifications it would have on them in the future. She fell silent.

"Might I suggest we begin at the beginning then?" Clark broke into her chaining down of her verbal demon with his next words. "I believe that was your idea, Lois."

"As are most of the intellectuals musings out of you head, Smallville," Lois murmured in a sickeningly sweet voice, knowing full well that he could hear her and not caring. She didn't know why she was angry with him but at the moment, anger appeared to be the only predictable emotion she was capable of.

Clark wisely pretended he didn't hear her. He opened his mouth to speak…

Seeing that Clark was about to start, she began to talk, knowing full well he would be annoyed with her and enjoying the moment of familiarity. "What made you kiss me Smallville? That enough of a beginning for you?"

"ME!" Clark exclaimed. "If I recall correctly, YOU kissed ME first. I would never…"

"Well I would never either, so it had to be you…"

They both paused, knowing instinctually that this section of argument was going to get them no where, and so they both moved one without actually addressing the all-important issue of who had started it. They both had and if either of them had thoughts to the contrary to this they didn't appear to want to say anything.

That was probably a good thing.

Lois sighed. "OK fine. We'll agree to disagree but just for the record, I think it's probably better to skip everything that happened last night. This morning is more important."

Clark raised his eyebrow at this uncharacteristic moment of maturity on her part. "Alright. What about this morning?"

Lois looked down at her hands. "We woke up together Smallville. I was on top of you…"

"And that was different from last night how?" Clark dead-panned, apparently able to channel Kal when it came to the subject of sex. Lois unconsciously filed that information away for later use…

She ignored him, continuing to talk, "…and your Mom was about to enter the room. It was all over very fast and," she paused, tilting her head up to look him in the eye. "I just want to know if what happened last night was a mistake or not. I can't really make up my mind about that."

"Neither can I," Clark murmured honestly, glad that it was Lois and not him that had asked the question.

"Gee thanks, Smallville," Lois said quietly, her eyes settling down onto her lap again. This was unlike her. In fact, she couldn't remember a time that a guy had confused as much as Clark did. It was a new experience and for that reason, she didn't know how to proceed.

"Well you said it first," Clark said quietly. He paused. "So what happens next? Do we date?"

"Ah yes, the ultimate question," Lois sighed, meeting Clark's eyes with her own. "Does it make me a bad person if I say I just want to be your friend right now?"

"No," Clark stood, moving to the window and away from the couch. "No, it doesn't."

But a part of him thought it did. A part of him-albeit a small part of him-had jumped for joy when they had taken that step away from friendship and into something…more. To be told now that she wanted to ignore this step annoyed him in a way he hadn't expected. He couldn't let it show though, not to Lois anyway. She was as confused as he was at the moment and he didn't want to pressure her into something she wasn't ready for.

Lois sighed again, this time in frustration. A part of her DID want to go back to being friends but another part of her-albeit a small part-had jumped for joy when they had taken that step away from friendship and into something…more. To have Clark confirm that he wanted to ignore this step (she hated when he agreed with her…) annoyed here in a way she hadn't expected. Somehow she got the feeling that Clark felt the same way but she didn't presume to make that kind of assumption for fear of getting herself hurt. Goodness knew that she had had enough of that already in her life, "Then why do I feel like I just said something wrong? I thought we were up here to figure this out and be honest with each other about what happened last night."

"Would it really be such a bad thing though?" Clark turned back to her, face in turmoil. Apparently the little part of himself that he had been trying to ignore all day was winning out over the rational parts of his brain. "You and me?"

Lois raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms and making herself more comfortable on the couch. "Truthfully?"

Clark nodded.

"At this juncture in our relatively short lives? Yeah it would be a bad thing." Lois said succinctly, standing up and moving over to the window where Clark stood. "You and me Smallville? We're friends. Sometimes I think the best of friends. Sometimes I want to kill you," she shrugged. "And I'll admit that friends DO make for the best relationships." She paused, examining Clark's eyes to make sure she hadn't inadvertently offended him again. Not that that would be a bad thing if they continued with their friendship as she rational part of her brain wanted, and got rid of the whole idea of something more. It was probably better if she kept things familiar. "But, I have a theory and…"

"Oh come on Lois!" Clark exploded, throwing up his hands in frustration. She was stalling…"Is this the biological response theory that Chloe was telling me about!"

"Well it kind of applies to this situation Clark. We ARE my theory right now so I'm going to explain it to you so that you fully understand why I'm not going to let one evening of sex with you become a lifetime of pain and heartache for us both. And don't give me that look," she said, referring to the hurt look that had just crossed Clark's face. He always took everything so personally… "You know I'm right. We're too young for a serious relationship. Or, if we aren't, we should be. I have things to do with my life before I settle down and I know you do. Somehow I can't see you and I having a relationship that either you or I could walk away from without someone getting seriously injured in the process. And it would probably be you."

Seeing that Clark had gone silent she continued on, journeying away from the uncomfortable emotional topic that she had been about to start. The truth of the matter was that there WAS a part of her that harboured romantic feelings for the man in front of her. She just didn't want him to find out about it, "The best romantic relationships are based upon friendships Clark. And while we ARE friends, we still fight all the time. Last night was only one example of why some couples are doomed from the start, you and I included."

He shot her a blank look.

"Now, to understand my theory, you need to understand that at the genetic level, we are all animals with the basic animal instincts that have been bred into us through millennia upon millennia of evolutionary growth. That being said, when the biological responses are triggered when two relatively healthy and attractive people meet and recognize the genetic potential of the person in front of them, things happen. Sometimes stupid things." She looked him straight in the eye. She had lost him. "People are meant to breed Clark." She said, finally. "The fact that you and I had sex last night was a reflection of that. You are attractive and healthy and so am I."

"So you're saying last night was all about breeding?" Clark re-iterated incredulously.

"Yes exactly," Lois finished, only changing her mind about her response when Clark's statement began to resonate in her mind embarrassingly. "No! That's not what I meant…."

"Then what did you mean Lois?"

She sighed, running a hand through her hair and praying that he wouldn't take this the wrong way. "I meant that what happened last night had nothing to do with feelings and everything to do with the fact that a) we had just come out of a life threatening situation and b) that we were thinking with our hormones and not our heads. "

As soon as the words left her mouth she regretted them. The damage was done though. She winced as the hurt look that had only been toying with Clark's expression throughout the conversation suddenly deepened into a full-out frown with the promise of brood if the look in his eye was anything to go for.

Clark fell silent, his heart breaking slightly as the small piece of him that had been quietly hoping for something more than friendship from Lois died. He sighed in disappointment, "Alright. That's that then."

Lois's furrowed her brow in confusion as she watched Clark start for the staircase to the loft. "What's what then?"

He turned, shrugging before going on sarcastically, "We don't need to talk about this anymore since you've obviously come up with an answer to the question of last night for both of us. Mystery solved. Hormones at work yet again. Congratulations Ms. Lane. A Kerth worthy story if I ever heard one."

"Clark…" she started after him.

He held up a hand, about to say something when suddenly his father's voice rang out across the tranquil Kansas evening, calling him back to the house. "Look, stay up here and wait for me to come back so that we can continue this, or don't stay. I won't be offended either way and if you choose the latter option, we can decide right now not to ever speak of last night again. It didn't happen."

"Clark…" she tried again, more desperately this time. This was not happening the way she had thought it would.

"But right now I need to see what my father wants and I don't have the will the lie to him to his face about why I didn't come out of the barn when he asked me to," he finished, turning and walking down the stairs. "I'll see you around, Lois."

Lois bit her lip, tears of anger at her behaviour spurring on the perpetuation of more tears threatening to fall. This was not good. Not good at all. With a sigh, she turned away from the stairs and started to pace the floor of the loft. Something had to be done.

She paused in her pacing, thinking that she had seen something. It was odd….something had been shining, briefly calling her attention to it, before fading away. She started as it flashed again, its light leading her to the far corner of the loft, coming from a small wooden box that had been haphazardly thrown onto a shelf as if someone had gotten sick of looking at it and had wanted to be rid of it once and for all.

She picked it up, not sure whether or not she should open it but, in the end, found herself far too curious not to. She WAS Lois Lane after all and some things, regardless of age, never changed; she would always be undeniably inquisitive. Acknowledging this fact and inwardly apologizing to Clark for going through his things, however unintentionally, she opened the box.

There, lying on its bed of rough wood, was a bracelet. She didn't find it especially noteworthy. To Lois, it was just a bracelet but something was calling to her, wanting her to put it on.

And so she did.

The moment it came to rest on her skin, something began to go through her body, something painful and yet warm, familiar, as if she was finally finding her purpose in life. The pain was annoying, but altogether not insurmountable and the warmth…for a moment Lois could have sworn that her mother was there with her. She closed her eyes and tried to calm the awful swirling sensation that had erupted from the pain and was currently making her want to heave but opened them again as the feeling abruptly stopped. Her eyes widened as she took in the fact that she wasn't in Kansas anymore.

She looked around at her surroundings. Something told her that no amount of tapping ruby slippers and muttering 'There's no place like home' was going to get her back to Kansas anytime soon. No, she was inside what looked like an ice palace (although she very strangely wasn't cold at all) and in front of her stood a woman.

Lois started, unsure of how the woman had gotten in front of her without her notice. "Who…who are you? And where am I?"

"The question isn't who I am Lois, it's who YOU are. Who I am is of no consequence at this point in time, nor is the location of the Fortress we're in right now."

"Still," Lois said quietly, remaining on guard of this woman. From what she could figure, she was either hallucinating this whole thing in Clark's loft or she was actually here. If the latter was true than the woman in front of her WAS actually of consequence and if not….Lois still wanted to know. "It would be nice to be able to give you a name since you apparently already know mine. It would also be nice to know who you are and what you want with me."

"As you wish," the woman said. "My name is Lara and you, Lois Lane, are here to begin your journey."

"Journey to where!" Lois exclaimed in frustration and, if she admitted it to herself, fear.

Lara smiled gently, knowing that her son, however inadvertently, had made the right choice, "To your destiny."


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Destiny**

"My what?" Lois exclaimed, looking at Lara as if she had grown two heads.

"Your destiny Lois," Lara answered patiently. "Fate."

"I don't believe in fate," Lois said quietly, raising her chin stubbornly.

"Of course you don't," Lara smiled.

Lois was at a loss for words. For all she knew, she was hallucinating this. It DID seem a more plausible situation than the one she found herself in right now, standing in front of a woman who claimed to be about to guide her on a 'journey to her destiny."

She sighed shortly in frustration, pinching herself to make sure that this was actually happening. She was rewarded with a sharp pain in her arm where her fingers had pinched the skin. This was real.

"Shall we begin then?" Lara motioned for Lois to follow her to a raised platform where a number of crystals lay scattered about.

Lois, after minutes of blindly listening to the woman in front of her, suddenly felt as she was waking up. Anger at Lara's assumption that she would just accept whatever 'fate' she had set forth for her surged through her and she found her voice, "No, I don't think so. Not until I get a background story on you, this place, and why exactly this," she pointed to the bracelet that was currently nestled, unmovable, on her wrist. She had tried to remove it when she had found herself here, but had instead been forced to let it sit there, stuck as it was to her skin, "won't come off."

Lara sighed. Even Kal-El had been easier on Jor-El with these kinds of questions but then again, Jor-El didn't really take the same approach as Lara did in terms of educating a person on their destiny. He generally didn't voice the request as a request; it was an order and if Kal-El didn't obey him then consequences generally followed. Indeed, the last time that Kal-El had come here, he had done whatever Jor-El had told him to-always remembering that he was only one step away from Jor-El taking his powers away should he choose not to finish his Kryptonian education. In the end, he had finished his education but had not as yet stepped into the role that was to be his own destiny. Lois, Lara knew, would be the key to getting that to happen.

It could only be her. She was the one- Kal-El's soulmate and the only woman capable of helping him become the man that he was to be. She would love him but more importantly, support him and take care of him. Lara could ask for nothing more from the woman who would one day mother her grandchildren.

Now she just had to convince her of this without scaring her off first.

"My name is Lara, I'm a holographic representation of a woman who used to live on the planet of Krypton. I…"

"Wait," Lois interrupted, pieces of this very big puzzle suddenly slipping into place. "Krypton? As in, where Clark's from?"

Lara nodded, "Kal-El is from Krypton. That is correct."

"Kal-El?" Lois furrowed her brow as she tried to remember if that was what Clark had told her was his Kryptonian name. She was pretty sure it was.

"My son," Lara sighed, knowing that a certain amount of truth was going to have to be shown to Lois to get her to do what she wanted. She would give her son this- he was a sucker for challenging women and Lois was perhaps the most challenging of all.

"Your son? Wait, so that means that you're…Clark's mom? His real mom?" Lois finally exclaimed, after a brief moment of thought that had involved her once again pinching herself.

Lara simply nodded. "Was. I'm a holographic representation. Lara, the real Lara, perished with Krypton."

"So what do you want with me?" Lois asked, really looking at the woman in front of her for the first time. She was tall-taller than Lois by at least 2 inches, and fair haired. Her eyes, as far as she could tell, were blue.

Clark had her eyes.

Lara shrugged, "I just want to teach you so you'll be prepared for what's to come. No more, and no less."

Lois placed a hand to her temple to calm the headache that she could feel forming. Teach her what? Lara, like Clark, apparently liked to talk in riddles. At least she knew where he got it from, "Lara, I think you're going to have to start from the beginning…"

Lois sank down onto the hard ice floor as the full impact of what Lara had spent the last half an hour telling her sank in. She was Clark's soulmate and what's more, he was destined to save the world. And it was going to be her fault…she pinched herself again. This had to be a dream. It couldn't actually be happening to her because it was just too weird.

"This is really happening Lois," Lara rolled her eyes. "Stop giving yourself bruises."

Lois looked up to glare at Lara, "Well you would too if you just found out that your life, the one you thought you didn't know what to do with only hours ago suddenly took on such monumental proportions that you thought your head was going to explode." Lois said sarcastically.

"I haven't finished yet Lois," Lara murmured gently, kneeling down next to Lois on the floor. "There's more you need to learn if you're going to be prepared for what's to come and we haven't much time. You're merely human right now and you can't forget that."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Lois shot her a suspicious look. She STILL hadn't been told what those crystals in the corner were for.

"You need to do something for me before I can let you go back to Smallville," Lara took one of Lois' in her own, "Something that will make you strong enough to help him along his path. Otherwise neither of you will get very far."

"And what is that Lara?" Lois ran a hand through her hair tiredly.

"You need to become one of us."

Lois simply stared, eyes widening in shock. This she hadn't been expecting. She had to have powers like Clark! She didn't think she was ready for that big of a responsibility...

"No powers," Clark's mother continued, dispelling the thoughts that were flying through Lois' brain at a thousand miles a second. "We can't change you too much genetically otherwise you wouldn't be you and that wouldn't be right. He's in love with you because of what and who you are, not who you could be if I were to make you fully Kryptonian. It's just to make you a bit…stronger in order to deal with what's to come."

"What makes you think he's in love with me?" she asked wearily, sinking her face into her hands. She couldn't believe that this was happening to her.

"He's not," Lara sighed and Lois' heart sank. "But he will be. Someday. This wasn't supposed to happen as soon as it did. Something triggered the bracelet's activation and I wasn't me. I wasn't expecting you for another 3 years at least."

A blush surfaced on Lois' face. She was never having unplanned sex again. She cleared her throat. "What's happens now then? Since it's so early?"

Lara stood. "We proceed as planned. Come with me."

Lois hesitated, seriously thinking about continuing to fight whatever Clark's mother wanted her to do. She found herself thinking about what Lara had said. They were destined to be together and what's more, he was destined for something greater. And, as much as she might dislike Clark right now, she still was able to recognize the huge amount of good he had already done for the world. To give up on someone's destiny for them was something she found that she couldn't do, especially when that someone was destined for such great things. Her own destiny was inconsequential in comparison although she knew that, at least according to Lara, it was of more consequence to the world than she could ever begin to imagine.

It was for this reason that she stepped up on the platform with Lara.

"I'm ready."


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Tattoo**

Lois slowly opened her eyes, taking in her surroundings. She was in Clark's bedroom again.

"You're awake," Clark murmured from beside the bed, leaning forward and taking her hand. "How're you feeling?"

"Okay I guess," Lois murmured back. Her brow furrowed as she tried to remember how she had gotten here. The last thing she remembered was stepping onto the platform with Lara…

Clark watched as she looked around the room as if she had never been here before. "Lois, what are you doing?"

She started, turning to look at Clark, a nervous smile on her face. "Nothing. Just…looking around."

"It's not like you haven't been here before," Clark teased awkwardly. He didn't know if this was too early in her recovery of whatever she had been through to joke. "Granted, you've been sleeping for 3 days but…"

Lois' eyes widened in shock, "3 days!" What had happened to her?

"Yeah, I found you passed out in the loft the night we had our talk," Clark answered reluctantly, as if he had something he didn't want to tell her. He did actually have something rather huge to tell her. Indeed, when he and had found her she hadn't been…herself. In fact, he'd go so far as to say that she greatly resembled Lionel Luther after his encounter with the Kryptonian crystal. His parents, upon seeing the condition that Lois had been in, had wanted to take her to the hospital but Clark had stopped them, afraid that if they took her there that she'd be locked up in Belle Reve.

He had been proven right in this decision when, upon moving her to the house, she had woken up and begun to speak in Kryptonian to anyone who would listen before passing out again.

Not having any other options, they had taken her up to his bedroom and waited. Now, 3 days after she had passed out in the loft, she was awake and apparently herself again..

"Do you remember anything?" he continued hesitantly, not knowing if Lois was up for questioning so early after waking up.

"You could say that," Lois mumbled, sitting up and resting her head in her hands. She desperately wracked her brain for memories-any memories- that Lara might have left her with but came up empty.

"Lois? Are you okay?"

"Yeah Clark, I'm just peachy," Lois snapped, anger at him flaring up for no reason. He was trying to help her but at the moment, all she could think about was that she had no clue what had happened to her in….whatever it was she had been in, wherever it was…and it was ultimately Clark's fault. But then again, this all went back to the evening they had slept together and she had been the aggressor in that situation. Therefore, she had no one to blame but herself. She gulped back the lump that was rapidly forming in her throat. There was no way she was going to let Clark see her cry. Despite this mantra, she felt a tear slip out.

Damn it.

She sighed, raising her head out of her hands and wiping the tear away. She met Clark's concerned gaze tiredly and felt herself slip even more, the lump of emotion in her throat threatening to overtake her, "I'm fine. I just…." More tears began to form in her eyes as she lost the battle with her emotions. She hated when she didn't have control over her own life...

Clark watched in shock as Lois broke down in front of him. With a sigh, he moved closer to her on the bed, taking her into his arms as she began to sob. "Shhh, it's okay."

"No it's not," Lois moaned as the full ramifications of the last 5 days slammed into her. She had almost been killed by yet another meteor freak, then she had had sex with Clark, and then stupidly agreed to become half-Kryptonian in order to guide Clark to his role as saviour of the world. Even Chloe would have trouble believing this and if it hadn't happened to her, she knew that she wouldn't have believed it either…"God, what did she do to me? I can't remember any of it…"

"What did who do with you?" Clark said in what he hoped was a soothing manner. He wasn't used to this kind of behaviour from Lois. Indeed, he had held Lana enough times when she cried (and she had done it a lot over the year that they had dated…), even Chloe occasionally, but Lois had never cried in front of him, let alone let him hold her this way.

"Your mother," Lois continued to cry, giving up on keeping any of her tear, or her experience, to herself. After all, Lara hadn't said anything about keeping any of it to herself and Clark was certainly entitled to the information she now had. After all, he was involved too.

Or would be anyways.

Clark raised an eyebrow, confused. "Lois, my Mom is downstairs making breakfast and she didn't do anything to you. Me and Dad were here the whole time you were asleep, I promise."

"Not Martha, Clark." Lois raised her head from his shoulder and looked him in the eyes. "Lara."

Clark froze in shock. He had only ever talked about Lara to his parents. Indeed, the information was too sacred to him to share with everyone, even his best friends.

Truth be told, he hadn't even thought about his biological mother since his last trip back to the Fortress and even then, the thoughts had been fleeting. He had been training with his father after all, absorbing information about Krypton and his heritage and that had required his full attention. Afterwards, he hadn't had the energy or the inclination to have a heart-to-heart conversation with Jor-El, and even if he had wanted to he probably wouldn't have spent the time reminiscing about his mother.

Jor-El didn't strike him as a particularly feeling man and any questions on Clark's part would probably be seen as a weakness, something that he was loath to show to his father.

No, generally after a session with Jor-El he only had the energy to get back to Smallville and go to bed. The only reason he had had to think of Lara at all was because she had written most of the crystals he was learning from. Lara, he had learned shortly into his journeys to the Fortress, had been a historian and librarian on Krypton. According to information he had learned from the crystals, she had been highly intelligent and had in fact written most of the last history accounts that Krypton had produced.

He was taken from his thoughts as Lois' head fell back to his shoulder. He watched as she continued to cry, rubbing her back and trying to ease her sobs. It didn't appear to be working though. Whatever she had been through must have been something huge for her to cry in front of him and he figured that it would have to be if it included his mother…

"Lois," he said softly after about five minutes of this, feeling her body begin to relax and the sobs finally quiet. She sat up again, reaching over to the bedside table and taking a few tissues from the box lying there. "I think we need to tell my parents what happened to you." He met her eyes, the full meaning of his words becoming apparent. "All of it."

"Even the sex?" she sniffled quietly, stifling a laugh and moving a hand to pull her hair off her face.

"Even the se…." Clark's eyes widened as something on her wrist caught his eye, something eerily familiar and so out of place on the woman in front of him that he forgot what he had been saying.

She was startled when he forcibly grabbed her arm. "Clark!" she cried, trying to get her arm back from his grip-but knowing that she would be unable to. "You're hurting me!"

"What is that?" he demanded, examining the tattoo that now sat on the outside of her wrist. A feeling of understanding began to rise within him. He thought he might know why Lois had had the experience she had had and his heart leapt as the implications of such a tattoo fell on him like a ton of Kryptonite bricks.

Lois shook her head in confusion, trying to get her wrist back from the iron grip that Clark was holding it in. Realizing what he was doing, he let go. "What are you talking about Clark? There's nothing ther…." She gasped as she looked at her the back of her wrist. There, seemingly burned into her skin was the symbol that the bracelet had carried on it.

The symbol that she could now read and understand...

The bracelet, as far as she could see, had left the mark but where it had gone she couldn't say. Maybe she had left it with Lara accidentally. Well, at least she had been able to get it off…

"Lois?" Clark waited for an answer, not liking the look of burgeoning understanding that was rising on Lois' face.

She sighed, knowing what the symbol meant but not feeling ready to verbalize it. She knew that Clark could read it too but, as it appeared he didn't want to talk about it right now also, she left the issue alone and moved on. That conversation would take awhile and she thought that his parents would probably have something to say about the situation that she and Clark had gotten themselves into. "Just let me get a shower and brush my teeth Clark. This might take awhile and I think your parents are going to want to hear everything in one go."

She pushed the covers back from the bed, noticing as she did so, that someone had taken the time to put her pyjamas on. She looked at Clark, raising an eyebrow in his direction and trying to lighten the mood. "Well, this is different," she murmured playfully, "Clothes this morning."

"Yeah well," Clark smiled back, taking Lois' lead and following back into their usual teasing banter. "We thought about leaving you naked after we undressed you but you would have gotten cold. Besides," he stood up and walked to the door to his room, turning to watch as she got out of the bed. "I really didn't feel like explaining how you got those hickeys on your inner thighs and Mom would have noticed if we left you naked. Would have lead to too many questions…"

"I do not have hickeys on my thighs, Kent," Lois called after him indignantly raising an eyebrow and watching as he left the room, closing the door behind them. "I think I would have noticed that…"

"Check it out Lane," Clark popped his head back in the door. "You can thank me later." And with that he was gone.

Moments later, when she passed him on the way to the bathroom for her shower, she couldn't help but blush.


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: The Consequences of Sex**

Martha Kent looked up from the pancakes she was making at the sound of Clark entering the room.

"She's awake," he said quietly, going to stand by the island in the middle of the kitchen and watching his mother as she cooked.

"How is she?" Martha put spatula she held down on the countertop and turned to her son, concern in her voice. "Would you watch the pancakes while I go check on her?"

Clark shrugged, walking over to his mother to stop her from going upstairs. Knowing she was in the shower having seen her go into the bathroom himself, hickey's and all, he answered his mother, "She's fine Mom. When I left the room she was talking about getting up and taking a shower, maybe brushing her teeth." His mom didn't need to know about their little 'chat.' Not yet anyway.

"Well that's good, isn't it?" she relaxed slightly, picking up the spatula she had dropped on the counter and flipping the pancakes.

Clark fell silent.

"Clark," Martha said warningly, sensing that something else was going on, "What aren't you telling me?"

Clark sighed. The full ramifications of Lois and his actions were going to come out soon but he couldn't tell his mom about them right now, didn't want to. Only part of the story was his after all and he felt that Lois should be here to share her half as well. "Mom, all I can say is that you're going to have to wait until she comes down here. There's something we all need to talk about."

They were interrupted as the door to the kitchen opened and his father stepped into the house.

"Morning," he said hesitantly, noticing the looks of apprehension on both his wife and his son's face. "Any news on Lois?

Clark cleared his throat, wishing that Lois had decided to come downstairs with him instead of taking a shower. He was no good at keeping information from his parents, especially information of this magnitude. Lois had the symbol representing soul mate tattooed on her wrist and that wasn't something that he could easily ignore, let alone keep from his parents.

His Mom saved him from having to answer by jumping into the conversation, "She woke up just awhile ago Jonathon. She's taking a shower now."

"She's alright then?" Jonathon asked, taking off his work gloves and setting them on the table. 

Clark nodded, knowing that Lois would not appreciate him sharing her tears with his parents, choosing instead to keep his answer simply, "So she says."

He fell silent, watching as his mother flipped the finished pancakes onto the already half filled plate sitting next to the stove.

"Clark, can you set the table for me?" she asked, going to the refrigerator and getting out the maple syrup. "Lois will be down soon and she'll probably be hungry."

He nodded, going to the cabinet and removing the necessary cutlery and plates while his father went to wash the dirt off his hands and his mother brought the food she had made for breakfast to the table.

Lois stared at her naked body in the bathroom mirror, still wet from her shower. She was harder, firmer and if her rough calculations were correct, her breasts had become perkier- overnight. She looked, in short, as if she had spent about a month-at least-in a gym. And she had a feeling that this was Lara's doing. The changes she had told her were going to be implemented before she had lost track of her memories apparently were not something that she could ignore, at least physically.

At least she didn't have powers like Clark though, that much she could say without a doubt. He had hurt her easily when he grabbed her arm in his bedroom. She also could say that she didn't have the healing ability that he had either. The aforementioned hickeys on her thighs were prime indications of this, a memory of her and Clark's sex-a-thon the other night that shouldn't have happened in the first place.

Well, at least not for another 3 years or so anyways….

She blushed, looking down her body at the marks again. After their initial-and mutual-pouncing on each other, they had calmed slightly, and the sex had become slower, less frenzied. She had taken her time exploring his body and he….she groaned quietly at the memories…had certainly done the same with her. She made a mental note to send Lana a better birthday present this year because whatever she had done to train Clark to be so good at all things oral, she deserved an award. A big one.

She sighed, pushing her thoughts back to the problem at hand and inwardly cursing herself for thinking back to that evening. Now she was frustrated on multiple levels and she didn't have time for that. She hadn't been able to retrieve any of her memories from her stubborn brain during her short shower. 

With this in mind, she grabbed a towel and wrapped herself in it, opening the door to the bathroom and walking down the hall to Clark's bedroom. There she found her clothes from 4 days ago, freshly laundered and lying in a pile waiting for her with some other items. Martha, she was pleased to say, had taken the time to go to her apartment above the Talon and retrieve a fresh set of clothes and underwear for her, as well as a bra, and of course the pyjamas that she had woken up in. Grateful for the variety of clothes, she put on the outfit that Martha had picked out of her closet for her, noticing as she did so that she had to take her belt in two notches and her shirt had gotten tighter. An alarm went off in her brain as a tiny memory of the time she had spent with Lara in those forgotten hours surfaced. She knew that this wasn't going to be the last of the physical changes.

She tried to put these thoughts aside though, choosing instead to move on to more important matters- like telling Clark and his parents that she and Clark were soul mates and that Clark was meant for great things.

Somehow she didn't think that they were going to take it well.

'After all,' she mumbled to herself as she left Clark's room, descended the stairs and walked down the hallway to the kitchen. 'Clark and I are just friends…with benefits. Nothing more.'

Yet.

"Lois, how are you feeling?" Martha asked worriedly as she came over to Lois and gave her a hug.

"Well, I'm awake," Lois hugged Martha back, taking a seat at the kitchen table as she did so. She exchanged apprehensive looks with Clark. She could tell just by looking at him that he didn't know how to tell his parents what they had to tell them either.

Jonathon watched the look passed between his son and Lois and worried. Something had happened in the last few days that they were both trying desperately to hide and he had a feeling that it had everything to do with what had happened to Lois in the barn. "Okay you two, enough with the secrets, what's wrong?"

"Now why would you think that something's wrong Mr. Kent?" Lois picked up the plate of pancakes and putting three of them on her plate before reaching for the plate of scrambled eggs. Whatever Lara had done to her, it had certainly left her with an appetite. But then again, that might have something to do with the fact that she hadn't eaten anything for 3 days…

Jonathon shot her an incredulous look, "You two were sneaking around here not 4 days ago with some kind of secret and then, the same evening Lois, Clark finds you passed out in the loft. Then, after he convinces us not to take you to the hospital, you begin to speak in Kryptonian. It doesn't take a smart man to figure out that something's going on here." He exchanged a look with Martha, wondering if he should continue. Maybe this was none of his business. Judging from the look she gave him in return though, she wanted to know what was going on as well.

"Dad," Clark started, putting down the forkful of eggs that he had been about to eat. "It's complicated but yeah, something is going on around here." He exchanged a look with Lois who smiled encouragingly through a mouthful of pancake. Apparently she was hungry, but, judging by both whatever Lara had done to her and the fact that she had been asleep for 3 days, he figured that that was probably a good thing. "Did you want to explain Lois, or should I?"

Lois shook her head, reaching for the bacon plate as she took a sip of her juice. "No Smallville, you can do it, at least the first part anyway. Besides, I lied the other day for you. It's time to even the score." She sent Mr. Kent an apologetic smile, "Sorry for that by the way. I didn't want to do it but he made me..."

"Clark," Martha cut in, seeing the flabbergasted look that had appeared on her husband's face. "Do you want to explain this? Why did Lois have to lie for you the other day?"

Clark glared at Lois from across the table. She smiled, satisfied with the way she had gotten rid of the responsibility of telling his parents and unapologetically dug wholeheartedly into the plate of food in front of her. Clark continued in explanation for what Lois had accused him of, "She didn't have to. We made the decision together," he looked over at his Mom. "Lois volunteered to do the actual lying."

"Oh, now that is not true," Lois put down her fork and pointed an accusatory finger in Clark's direction, "You made the suggestion, and I backed you up. It's not my fault you took me up on it."

"Quiet," Jonathon cut in firmly, "Both of you." He wanted to know what was going on NOW and he could tell from the look that Martha was currently sporting that she felt the same way. "Would someone just tell us what's going on?"

Lois sighed, taking a piece of bacon and chewing on it thoughtfully, looking at Clark as she did it, both of them thinking the same thing: How exactly were they going to start this conversation?

In the end, they both decided that the direct way of approaching this was the best. Clark would deal with the ramifications later. After all, it wasn't like he hadn't had to explain himself before; he and Lana had been caught in a compromising position, making her the second girl they had caught him with, and Alicia had been the first. At least in this situation he had the advantage that Lois and he hadn't been caught and could tell his parents what had happened at their leisure.

In a manner of speaking anyways.

"We had sex," they finally said, in unison, leaving Martha and Jonathon in silence.

Martha was the first to break the silence with a quiet chuckle. Clark and Lois simply stared at her incredulously before looking at each other. This wasn't panning out like either had thought it would. To their surprise, Jonathon joined his wife in her laughter and pretty soon, both of the elder Kent's were laughing.

"Mom," Clark said after an uncomfortable moment. After all, he hated to be the butt of a joke and it appeared that both he and Lois had inadvertently become just that.

"Mr. Kent?" Lois deadpanned.

"Yes kids?" Jonathon tried to stifle his laughs that were quickly downgrading themselves to mere chuckles.

"Are you guys okay?" Clark asked in a guarded voice. He really hadn't expected this reaction and now he didn't know how to approach the rest of the conversation. "With what happened, that is? Because I didn't think you'd take it this well…"

Martha turned mirth filled eyes on Clark, laughter finally under control, "Well we can't say we weren't expecting it. The way you two fight…."

"Martha's right," Jonathon chimed in. "Is that the secret then? That's it?"

Lois shifted uncomfortably in her seat. And here came the moment that she had been dreading. The shit was about to hit the fan, "I wish it were, but it's not."

Jonathon and Martha immediately sobered, worst case scenarios popping into their brains, "You're not pregnant are you Lois?" Martha asked warily. Not that this would be a bad thing- in a few years that is. She knew that a baby at this point in either Lois or Clark's lives wouldn't be a good thing. They were too young and neither had finished school, not to mention that, as far as Martha knew, they weren't even dating. 

"No," Lois shook her head and immediately setting both Kent's minds at ease. "Nothing like that, well, that's not entirely true…"

"Then what?" Jonathon leaned forward, his breakfast long forgotten in front of him.

Lois looked at Clark. Even he didn't know this portion of events that she was about to tell his parents. She prayed that she would forgive him for the very heavy conversation she was about to lay on them all. Sighing, she lifted her arm with tattoo on it.

Clark's parents eyes widened as they took in the sight of what they knew was the Kryptonian symbol for soul mate. They turned their gaze to Clark who was looking on in resignation.

"And there's more," Lois went on, knowing from the looks on all the Kent's faces that she didn't have to explain the tattoo. They just knew. "The night Clark found me in the loft was the night that I found the bracelet that left this," she pointed to the tattoo burned into her skin, "on my wrist and also transported me to this place. I think it was in the Arctic but I can't be sure..."

Clark's jaw dropped. He hadn't heard this part…"You were in the Fortress of Solitude! She took you to the Fortress of Solitude?"

Lois raised an eyebrow. "Was that where that was? And can we call it something else, Smallville? I mean seriously, can you get a geekier name than that? Honestly, I would've thought you, being the journalism student, would have come up with a better name than that…" She shook her head, moving on with her story, "All I know is that is looked like some kind of ice castle, you know, like the hotels you can find in Europe that are made entirely of ice?" She paused, taking a breath and pointedly ignoring the stunned looks on the faces of the people at the table with her. She didn't have time for that right now. If she stopped talking, she might not be able to start again without losing her place. Destiny tended to be a tad distracting and at the moment she was happy enough to deal with Clark's, and not her own beyond her role in guiding him to his…

"And then," she continued, coming to the end of the information that she was willing to share with Martha and Jonathon, "there was this woman named Lara who told me that she was Kal-El's mother and that I was his soul mate who would lead him to his destiny as saviour of the world but in order to do that, I had to be prepared and before I knew it, she was leading me up to a platform of crystals to do God knows what with. The next thing I know, I'm waking up in Clark's bed, and I have this," she held up her wrist for everyone to see again, "Tattooed on me." She examined the dark symbol that started on the back of her wrist and wound it's way around, finishing where the veins ran into her hand. "Not sure where the bracelet went actually." She shrugged. "Maybe Lara still has it…

Lois stopped her explanation and looked around the room. Not a sound was heard as the full ramifications of what she had told them began to sink in.

Jonathon and Martha simply looked at each other. They hadn't been expecting this. Granted they knew their son had a destiny, they just hadn't thought that Lois would be included in it, let alone that she would play such a large role.

Somehow, they thought that Lois being pregnant would've been easier.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: Truth is Relative**

Lois frowned into the tea that Martha had sat in her hands only moments before, trying to put the conversation at the breakfast table out of her mind.

The rest of it hadn't gone well and she was pretty sure that Clark was up in the loft brooding again. As for his parents, they had decided to go to the living room for what she knew was going to be one of their infamous Kent family talks –this time, minus Clark. This showed the very depth of feeling they felt for their son and for a moment, Lois wondered if Clark fully appreciated the lengths that his parents had gone to make certain that he was safe.

Somehow, she thought he did…

Since learning Clark's secret, she had discovered that these hushed conversations had always been about him. This made her feel even worse because now she knew that they were talking about her, worrying about her and this, she felt, was completely unnecessary. She could take care of herself.

But then again, she was new at this secret keeping thing and the Kent's certainly weren't.

She sighed, leaning over to put the mug of tea on the table beside her, leaning back in the porch swing after she had done so. She had gone out to the porch after Clark had stormed out of the house, having not wanted to talk to Jonathon and Martha anymore. The truth of the matter was that Lois was all talked out.

She hadn't thought that that was possible but then again, a lot of things that she hadn't thought were possible had been happening to her lately.

The whole thing would have gone better if she had been able to remember what Lara had done to her during the missing hours she was now carrying around with her. Beyond the physical changes and the tattoo, she STILL didn't know what had been done to her body and the ramifications that these changes would have. A headache began to start in the back of her head and she closed her eyes. This was not good, not good at all.

Chloe Sullivan pulled up to the Kent farm and sighed. She didn't know why she was here. Truth be told, she didn't have a reason to be here, only a hunch that she was needed. That and the fact that she had woken up this morning with a tattoo on her ankle that the doctor had told her hadn't been put there by ordinary means.

No ink required apparently.

Lana (her roommate, first in the dorms at Met U and now in the apartment they shared near the Campus) had taken one look at it when Chloe had come back from her appointment and told her to get back to Smallville as quickly as possible- she would follow as soon as her classes were finished for the day and explain the rest.

Chloe got the feeling that Lana knew little more about this than she did.

Chloe, having noted the resolved look on Lana's face, had listened though. Now, as she got out of her car and walked toward the farmhouse, she began to question why she had listened to Lana and moreover, why she had listened to the little voice in her head that had insisted that she come out here to the Kent's first instead of going home where her Dad was…

"Chloe?" a familiar voice called, drawing her out of her thoughts and putting an immediate smile on her face.

The smile dropped when she actually got a look at the person in question, "Lois!" Chloe turned from the door that she had been about to open and took in the sight of her cousin, hunched over on the porch swing listlessly. She looked sick… "Oh my God, what happened to you?"

"Nothing," Lois smiled nervously, trying to stand but finding the she couldn't. Indeed, in the 10 minutes since she had sat down on the porch swing, the headache had grown to a pounding and then started to drift downwards, seemingly encompassing her whole body. At the moment, it had progressed to what she thought were the worst menstrual cramps known to man and to make matters worse, she was pretty sure that she was either going to throw up or pass out.

She just hoped she didn't do it on Chloe.

"Okay," she laughed, moaning as it made her hurt more. She was determined to overcome the pain though. She WAS General Sam Lane's daughter after all and if she had learned one thing in the years she had spent at his side travelling the world-she shuddered as another cramp took her by surprise, vying with her head for which body part hurt more -Lane's don't feel pain, they overcome it.

"Maybe something happened to me." She gulped down the bile that was threatening to make an appearance. "Chloe, maybe you should go get Clark…" Another wave of pain racked her body, making her gasp and the world started to fade. She struggled to keep her eyes open as the memories of what Lara had done to her started to come back. It was too late though. The world began to spin before fading to black…

"Lois!" Chloe exclaimed in alarm, kneeling by her cousin's now limp form.

But Lois, she found, couldn't hear her.

"What exactly happened here?" Chloe demanded, watching as Clark gently placed Lois on his bed, taking the time to remove her shoes and tuck her in, his parents looking on in concern. After Lois' collapse, she had started to run for the barn-where she figured Clark might be- when she had suddenly remembered that her best friend had super-hearing. Clark had appeared in front of her in seconds and they had gotten Lois upstairs to his room. His parents had come in as they were finishing and now, here they were.

She watched as Clark exchanged looks with his parents at Chloe's question, causing her to roll her eyes in frustration. "Oh would you all just stop with the talking with your eyes thing that the three of you do," Chloe exclaimed in frustration. "Just tell me what happened and make it fast. We need to get her to a hospital…"

"NO!" All three Kent's cried in alarmed voices.

Chloe raised an eyebrow in confusion, "Okay. Why not? She was in a huge amount of pain and I've got to tell you, that's not normal. She's sick and we have to get her to a hospital."

Clark exchanged a final look with his parents and drew a breath, "Chloe, we don't have to do that because we know why Lois is sick."

"And why is that Clark?" Chloe demanded angrily. She didn't like being kept out of the loop and already the Kent's secretive behaviour was driving her nuts. She wanted to know what was wrong with her cousin and Clark was damn well going to tell her about it. She watched as her best friend asked his parents to leave the room and he pulled up a chair next to the bed, motioning for Chloe to take the other one sitting there. The investigative reporter inside of her asked why Clark needed two desk chairs in his room when he only had one computer but she was too interested in his explanation to care much about the seating arrangements.

They would have time for that later…

Clark sighed, "Chloe, what if I told you that Lois wasn't completely human anymore?"


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: Pillow Talk**

She had to stop meeting him this way.

Lois rolled her eyes as she took in the sight of a) where she was (yet again…) and b) who was there with her (yet again…). Granted this time they were both clothed but the fact remained that she had spent entirely too much time in Clark's bed in the last 5 days. She rolled over and propped herself up with her elbow, staring down at his slumbering body and willing him to wake up.

She didn't have to wait long.

Clark had woken up when he felt her turn over. At around midnight he had come upstairs to check on her and, for reasons he wasn't yet prepared to acknowledge, he had found himself lying down next to her.

He couldn't believe that she was his soul mate. He had been up in the loft thinking about it all earlier and he had come to the conclusion that if it was true, that she really was his soul mate….then his parents should start planning the funerals now because he and Lois would probably kill each other.

One moment he had been awake, thinking about the situation that his biological mother had placed them in and then…he had woken up.

He opened his eyes, having sensed her staring at him.

"Fancy meeting you here again," she murmured, smirk firmly affixed to her face.

He sat up, moving to get off the bed. He wasn't supposed to have fallen asleep…

She stopped him though, placing a hand on his thigh accidentally in her rush to get him to stay. Realizing where it had landed though, she removed it as she had been burned. Touching Clark there could easily fall into the realm of naughty touching and that was not a good thing. The fact of the matter was that she was still attracted to him and didn't know what would happen if they let any naughty touching happen again.

"You don't have to go, you know," she murmured, trying to quell the blush that had suddenly risen in her cheeks. She was ashamed to admit that she still wanted him, especially after what Lara had shown her in the Fortress of Solitude. Now was not the time to be lusting over Clark Kent…

Clark looked at her- half on the bed, half off- and sighed, "You sure?"

She nodded.

He sat down again beside her. "You want to tell me what happened earlier then? Or do you feel like sleeping some more?"

"Boy, you really get right to the point, don't you Smallville?" Lois pushed the covers down slightly and moved the pillow she had been lying on to rest under her arm. She sighed as Clark continued to look at her with a serious expression on his face. She averted her eyes under the pressure of it all.

So much for making light-hearted conversation before they got to the big topics.

"Sure Clark, let's talk about what happened earlier."

He looked at her expectantly, arms crossed across his chest.

"Okay then," she said under her breath before switching to a normal voice. "I remembered everything, that's what happened earlier." She swung her eyes up from the bedspread to meet his. "God Clark, you'd better be worth this, otherwise we're all in trouble."

"What do you mean by that?" he asked quietly, moving lower down on top of the covers and grabbing a pillow until he was mimicking Lois' position on the bed.

She sighed.

"Lois," Clark encouraged, "What did my mo…." He stopped, unwilling to call the holographic form that Lois said had come to her in the Fortress his mother. Although she hadn't given birth to him, in his heart, Martha Kent was his mother and no woman-real of holographic-could take her place for him. "What did Lara do to you?"

Lois exhaled, panicking slightly. She didn't know if she was ready to say what had to be said to him. A flashback from yesterday suddenly popped into her head. Chloe had been there when she collapsed…"What'd you tell Chloe by the way?"

"Lois…" he protested the subject change. The Chloe conversation could wait.

"Clark…"

He gave in, sighing, running a hand through his bed-head hair as he did so, "We told her the truth- that you weren't exactly human anymore and that's why you were so sick."

"And what'd she do when you told her that?" Lois stifled a chuckle. She could only imagine how Chloe had reacted. She was sorry she had missed it.

"She didn't take it well," Clark said impatiently, choosing not to elaborate in the hopes of Lois getting back to the subject at hand, "Lois can we get back to Lara?"

She rolled her eyes, "Fine Clark. What do you want to know?"

He caught her eye, "Everything. I want to know everything. This is my life we're talking about, and yours…"

"Our destinies you mean," she rolled onto her back.

"Destiny is another word for not having a choice, Lois," he said, responding to her choice of words negatively. Indeed, he didn't like that word, thought it got tossed around too much when it came to his life and he was sick of it. Jor-El used it with him all the time and Chloe had taken to using it in his freshman year of college. His parents had even taken to using the term. In short, he was at the point that he didn't want to even talk about it anymore.

"Gee thanks Clark," Lois glared at him from her position on the bed. "It's good to know that you're looking so forward to our life together."

He sighed in frustration. He hadn't meant it that way... "Lois, doesn't it bother you that we don't have a choice in this? What if we're not happy? What if we end up together and we make each other miserable?"

Lois raised an eyebrow incredulously, "This is what you're worried about? You're eventually going to be able to save the world on a daily basis and you're worried about your love life? Do you realize how many lives could be saved if you become even half the man that Lara says you're going to be? What does it matter if you or I end up together, or even that we're happy if the rest of the world is a safer place to live in?"

He fell silent, her words shaming him slightly.

Lois cleared her throat. She had meant what she said. If Clark saved even one life in the future because of her than she would be happy. She took a breath, her words of chastisement grounding her in what she had to do. Clark had to know what had been said, "Now do you want to know what Lara did or not, because I'm ready to tell you. No interruptions with random questions this time, I promise."

He nodded affirmatively, watching as Lois got more comfortable on the bed in preparation for her story. He watched as she stretched out the kinks from sleeping and then pushed him onto his back, proceeding to put her head on his chest. "Lois?" he queried awkwardly. "What are you doing?"

"Oh get over yourself Smallville. Your virtue's safe with me tonight," she scowled, handing him the pillow that has been under her head and already feeling safer as she snuggled into his chest. Normally she only did this when they were drunk (in fact, the last time she had done this, Chloe had joined her and they had both used Clark as a pillow for the duration of their post-second year of University drinking party/movie night that they had had in Lois' apartment above the Talon) but, for reasons unknown to her, it always made her feel safer and she thought she needed that right now, especially with the story she was about to tell, "You let me do this when we were just friends without the benefits so why is now any different?"

"Because we haven't been drinking for starters," Clark propped himself up with the pillow she had handed him.

"Well does there have to be drinking for me to enjoy my best friend's company?" Lois said sarcastically, "And stop interrupting, Clark. It's annoying."

He rolled her eyes, letting her tell her story...

_Sometime five days ago…_

Lois was overwhelmed with all the information she was getting. Indeed, once Lara had handed her one of the crystals, a light had engulfed her and seconds after, she had felt the first flow of energy and knowledge surge through her body. Crystal after crystal had been given to her, giving her all the information she would need to guide Clark into his destiny.

Not that she was doing this alone.

Jor-El had spent the last few years of Clark's life training him in what he needed to know about his powers. It was now Lois' job to help him through the coming months and years.

Lara wouldn't tell her why she had to be there for him but Lois could tell that her presence wasn't going to be to offer him a job well done at the end of the day. No, she got the impression that something tragic had been put in motion and for that reason alone she would have stuck around.

What she had been most excited about though, was the prospect of Clark's emerging new powers. According to Lara, he had been fighting them in his everyday struggle to be 'normal.' She looked forward to the fact that, for the first time since she had met Clark, she would be privy to something in his life that no one else was, not even his parents.

But it was only when the last crystal had been handed to her did she see the real reason why Lara had brought her here.

"Lois?" Lara had come forward at that point, placing a hand gently on her shoulder as she had stared at the plans for her body.

"No," Lois had shaken her head, disturbed at the changes that Lara wanted to implement in her. "This is too much. I can't."

Lara had simply smiled. This is why Kal-El had chosen her, even though he hadn't realized he had done so. Lois's reaction to the first set of genetic plans-designed to test her and make her strong enough even to rival her son–had been set in front of her to find out whether or not she would take the extraordinary amount of power that she had to offer her. She hadn't taken it though and that made all the difference in how the future would ultimately work out…"I thought you might say that. Shall we go with plan B then?"

"What's plan B?" Lois had asked suspiciously. Plan A had looked like a complete overhaul of her body and, even for a destiny that might save the world she wasn't prepared to do that to herself. The power alone, she knew, would be too much to handle and she worried that it would go to her head with negative results for everyone.

Lara had handed her another crystal and Lois had reluctantly accessed its memory banks, waiting for the light to engulf her again. It hadn't come. Instead, a holographic image had appeared in front of….a vision of the future….

_Present Day_

Clark looked down at the woman lying on his chest. "Well! What was it?"

Lois cringed at his eagerness. It was hard to believe that this was the same man who had argued with her over destiny and its ramifications only a half hour ago, "Clark, I saw the future. Are you really sure you want to know? Considering how you feel about destiny I really don't think it's a good idea."

Clark sat up, forcing Lois to sit up and look him in the eye, "Forget what I said earlier about that. I want to know."

"Well what if I don't want to tell you?" Lois raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. "This could seriously mess up everything that we have right now, Clark, and I don't think you fully realize that."

Clark sighed, "Did Lara want me to know, Lois?"

Lois fell silent and then… "Yes, more than anything."

"Then tell me, please."

Lois got out of the bed.

"Where are you going?" Clark asked in confusion, watching as she went over to the sweater that she had been wearing the day she had been taken to the Fortress.

"You know," she said quietly, opening up a hidden pocket that she had had sewn in for when she travelled through dangerous parts of the world with her father. Even with the heavy military guards, it never hurt to be prepared, "I always thought I would be putting my passport in here or my credit cards, not pieces of crystal. Seems kind of random, even for me." She walked back over to the bed and handed Clark the clear piece of rock in her hand. "You know how to activate this I assume."

Clark looked at her and nodded, standing before activating the little piece of the future that his biological mother had seen fit to provide him with. He was startled when the usual light didn't appear just….a moving image of a little girl playing with a dollhouse.

"Lois, who is that?" Clark asked warily, unsure of where to begin to guess with this one.

Lois sighed, coming up next to him and laying a hand on his shoulder, "That, Clark Kent, is your daughter."

Clark whirled around, the image shutting itself off as he did so. "What! Lois are you…"

Lois burst into laughter, "NO! God no, Clark. I know we were a little…distracted that night but we did use a condom and I'm on birth control. Besides that, you can't father children with human women. Your DNA's too different."

"Then how…."

"That was plan B," Lois said quietly. "If I couldn't be there with you as a Kryptonian, and I do mean as a full Kryptonian, power and all, then Lara was going to find a way to make sure that somehow Earth was protected. If it wasn't going to be by you then…by someone else."

"Her," Clark breathed. He had wondered about this for years, not knowing whether or not he could even hope for the opportunity for fatherhood but now he knew.

It was possible.

He furrowed his brow, confused with a point that Lois had left out, "But, how is it possible if I can't….and you're….?"

Lois shrugged, "You didn't lie to Chloe, Clark, when you told her that I'm not entirely human. I'm not anymore. Just….altered slightly."

She moved to lie down on the bed again, her body, so recently having shifted and jolted itself to accommodate her new 'aspects' already protesting her short bout of standing. "Look, I'm really tired. Can we do this again in the morning?" She smiled shyly, "Then we can do this all over again for your parents and Chloe…"

Clark nodded, mind pre-occupied with what Lois had told him. He needed to think. "I'll see you in the morning then, and Lois?"

"Yeah Smallville?" Lois said drowsily from the bed, already falling asleep.

"Thanks for telling me."

Lois smiled, cracking an eyebrow open, "You're welcome. Now leave so I can get to sleep, you're keeping me up…"

Clark smiled back hesitantly. He had a lot to think about before he went to bed. As it was now 3 in the morning, he thought he might go get his chores done, anything to stop the now rapidly spinning thoughts in his brain. He sighed. He wanted to talk more but Lois was tired and he couldn't keep her up, not with everything she had been through for him, "Good night Lois."

And with that, Lois watched as he left the room, groaning in frustration as soon as the door shut. She felt so guilty…if only he knew the rest of the things that Lara had told her about in the Fortress of Solitude. She had been expressly forbidden to speak of it though, a side effect of taking plan B and not A.

Sleep was driving these thoughts from her head though. She yawned. There would be lots of time to think of these things later. For now, she just wanted to sleep. Absentmindedly, she rubbed the tattoo that now graced her wrist.

And from across town in her old room, Chloe did the same in her sleep to her ankle, which had inexplicably begun to glow….


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: Chloe**

Chloe found herself in much the same spot as she had just 24 hours ago only this time she had the luxury of a clear head. Lois wasn't passed out in front of her and this, she found, did wonders for her state of mind. Now if she could only solve the mystery of the tattoo that had appeared on her ankle two mornings ago…

"So…you guys want to tell me what happened yesterday?" Chloe demanded, taking a sip of the coffee that Mrs. Kent had brought out to the loft for them. She watched as her cousin and her best friend exchanged glances, seemingly having a conversation with their eyes….

She raised an eyebrow. This was an unexpected development. Whatever it was that had happened to Lois, it had brought her and Clark closer together.

Not that she hadn't seen THAT coming.

Despite her constant negative comments in relation to their bickering, she had noticed fairly early on that the arguments that Clark and Lois had been having since the day they met had just been foreplay. She just wished they would get it over with and sleep with each other already because this song and dance routine they did on a daily basis was really getting on her nerves…

The fact that she also had a bet with Lana about when they would succumb to the sexual tension that existed between them was superfluous to the issue.

"Chloe…" Clark started hesitantly. "It's complicated."

"No actually, it's not," she pursed her lips. "I'm just asking why I got here yesterday to find my cousin almost passed out on your porch."

"What made you come back to Smallville this weekend anyway?" Lois asked, trying to change the subject for a brief moment. She and Clark had told his parents her newest 'revelations' concerning her visit with Lara and that had gone…rather unexpectedly, but a good unexpectedly. Indeed, they hadn't objected to the fact that Lois could potentially have Clark's children should the future that Lara foretold ever came true. They had simply told them to wait to give them grandchildren until they were at least out of University. Lois internally shook her head at the memory. This was nothing like how she knew her father would react but they would cross that bridge when they got to it.

Chloe shot her cousin an annoyed look. This was typical Lois behaviour and it only served to make her more suspicious that something big was going on here. Her presence in Smallville was secondary to what was going on in front of her. The tattoo on her ankle could wait to be explained.

"Does it matter? Lois, you were in a lot of pain yesterday. You should have gone to the hospital but instead, I get the entire Kent family telling me that you're 'not exactly human anymore' and couldn't be taken to the hospital. So my question is this: how did you get to be this way and why do you and Clark keep exchanging looks like you've got some kind of big secret?"

She watched as Lois and Clark fell into an uncomfortable silence in front of her, exchanging another loaded look between them before Lois, still visibly uncomfortable, spoke.

"Some….things….happened after you left the farm the other day Chloe…."

Chloe looked at them, confused for a moment. "That guy that tried to kill us didn't get out of Belle Reve did he?"

She paused to see if Lois or Clark wanted to jump in with an explanation anytime soon. She continued though when she saw that this wasn't going to happen. They both looked like they wanted to tell her, but didn't know how to start. She decided to help them out, continuing with her questions.

"What then? When I left you guys, you were arguing pretty loudly so I guess that leaves out the friendly conversation option. Not that that's EVER happened. I just don't understand," she racked her brain for other options, "What could have happened after I left that would make you guys so," something clicked inside her head and then…"Oh my God, you two had sex, didn't you?"

Her eyes widened as the pair averted their eyes and blushed. Her jaw dropped as she didn't hear the expected expressions of denial, instead, getting uncomfortable silence…"You DID?"

"Chloe," Lois murmured, blushing hotly and exchanging a look with an equally flush Clark.

"Well how was it!"

"CHLOE!" Both Lois and Clark exclaimed now, the blushes deepening to a bright red.

Chloe smiled wryly, elated at the information she had just extricated from their reactions to her completely inappropriate question, "That good eh?"

"Please tell me we're not having this conversation," Lois murmured in an embarrassed voice, bringing up a hand and running it through her hair.

"Chloe…" Clark tried to break into her excited pseudo-conversation with them. This was definitely not going the way he had expected.

"So, are you dating now? Do I finally win that bet with Lana? Cause she didn't think that this would happen until at least the end of college," Chloe sat back in wonder. She was up $50 bucks now…

"Lana and you were betting on us?" Clark spat out in shock.

"Well yeah Clark. I mean, we all knew this was going to happen," Chloe looked at him as if he were nuts to assume that he and Lois WOULDN"T get together eventually. "It was just a matter of time before SOMETHING happened anyway. The way you two fight alone is indicative of..." She trailed off, looking at the two in front of her, and trying to gauge what was going on in their brains. Her eyes widened as her busy brain began making connections to what happened yesterday and from the facts that she now knew… "Lois….you're not pregnant are you? Is that why you collapsed yesterday?"

"Why does everyone keep assuming that I'm pregnant?" Lois rolled her eyes, crossing her arms in frustration. "Mrs. Kent thought I was too."

"Well are you?" Chloe queried quietly. Not THAT would change everything…

"No," Lois huffed. "I'm not. And it's so nice of everyone to think that Clark and I would do something so stupid as to not use protection. I collapsed for another reason all together and you'll be pleased to note that it had nothing to do with whether Clark's alien swimmers were potent enough to knock me up."

If it was possible, Clark's face grew even redder.

Chloe held back laughter at Clark's expense, moving on despite the joy she took in making Clark uncomfortable in these kinds of situations, "So what was with the 'not entirely human' explanation that I got about it then? Care to explain?

Happy that Chloe had moved on from the sex portion of their evening, Lois sighed, sitting back against the couch and unknowingly pushing herself closer to Clark. Chloe, ever the reporter DID notice though. She was barely able to cover the smirk that had replaced her laughter as Lois began to speak. "Well, after….what happened between Clark and I, something else happened. Something…BIG."

"Like what?" Chloe leaned forward and reaching for her mug of coffee, taking a sip.

"Like I found this bracelet up here, put it on and suddenly found myself in the Arctic," Lois winced, not sure what to expect from her cousin. Chloe appeared to be over Clark but if she wasn't, what she was about to say was going to devastate her. She watched as her cousin took another sip of her coffee. "And then….I kind of got told that Clark and I are soulmates…"

Coffee went everywhere as Chloe's shocked laughter burst out of her mouth and the coffee in question followed. "I'm sorry did you say soulmates?"

Lois raised her hand to brush the spatters of coffee of her face and, much as Clark had done the evening she had woken up after meeting Lara in the Arctic, Chloe's eyes widened. There on Lois's wrist lay a tattoo remarkably like her own. All thoughts of Lois' potentially inhuman status fled her mind.

"Yeah, that's what I said," Lois murmured, looking up from her lap where her eyes had fallen moments ago and taking in the wide-eyed look of shock on Chloe's face. "Chloe, I know it's unexpected but…."

"Lois, where did you get that!"

"From the bracelet," Lois said hesitantly, moving closer to Clark instinctively. She didn't like how Chloe was looking at her...

Chloe drew a breath, standing up, "And when did you get this tattoo? What night specifically?"

"Two nights ago I think," Lois said quietly, still weirded out by Chloe's behaviour. "Clark? Did you notice any marks on my wrists when you found me in the barn?"

He shook his head. "No. When I found you in the loft you didn't have the tattoo or the bracelet on your wrist. That appeared when you woke up." He shrugged. "I could ask my parents though. They were here too." He turned to Chloe questioningly. "Why do you ask?"

Chloe took a deep breath, taking off her boot and sock before lifting her foot onto the edge of the coffee table between them. "Because I woke up two mornings ago with this inexplicably tattooed on my ankle."

She lifted her pant leg, showing Lois and Clark the mark.

"Oh my God," she paled, suddenly understanding what was going to happen in the next few months-the ultimate reason why she had been told to stay with Clark and guide him through the next part of his journey to what he would become. This couldn't be happening…

Clark furrowed his brow, reading the Kryptonian symbol currently nestled immovable on Chloe's ankle and drew a breath. He was confused.

Why would Chloe have the Kryptonian symbol for 'sacrifice' written on her ankle?


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: Secrets**

It was nearing midnight by the time Chloe left, having been told by Clark what the symbol meant and then sent on her way after a long conversation during which time Lois had found herself lying through her teeth. Chloe and Clark had been unable to make heads or tails of its meaning and Lois had been unwilling to step into the translation process.

She wasn't allowed to.

Lara had forbade her from telling anyone beyond Clark what was going to happen for fear that the destiny that they were ultimately going to fall into would fail. Not that she knew what was going to happen. The fact that Chloe was involved had also been a complete surprise.

It wasn't as if she thought that Chloe was going to die or anything like that-she was probably jumping to conclusions. Lara had only spoken of a sacrifice that would occur in Clark's life that would lead to his destiny and Lois had no idea of how this was going to happen.

She didn't think she wanted to know either...

"Lois, what was that about?" Clark demanded as they came into the house, entering the kitchen.

"Nothing Smallville. Just…nothing," she murmured angrily, going to the fridge and pouring herself a glass of water.

"You're lying to me," Clark said, really looking at Lois' expression for the first time since Chloe had left 15 minutes ago after a private chat with his parents. "And you just spent the last hour lying to Chloe."

"Why would I lie to you Clark? Or Chloe for that matter?" She turned to him, taking a sip of water as she did so. She didn't know if Clark needed to know why the tattoo was there in the first place because it probably meant nothing. After all, sacrifice could have a multitude of means beyond the taking of a life. Clark was meant for great things from what Lara had told and shown her and she didn't want to place that destiny in jeopardy.

Too many lives were at stake for her to do that.

Clark fell silent, trying to determine why she would lie to him about anything concerning Chloe. The only reason he came up with was that maybe that tattoo that Chloe had on her ankle meant more to Lois than it did to him. She HAD been unusually quiet since the moment that Chloe had shown them.

"See?" Lois said sarcastically, patting Clark's arm and taking his silence as a signal of defeat. She inwardly sighed in relief. Thank God for stupid farm boys… "No reason. I'm not lying to you so you can rest easy."

"But you ARE lying Lois. And don't try to tell me again that Chloe's tattoo isn't freaking you out either."

Lois sighed, setting the water she held down on the kitchen counter. "Who says I could read it? What makes you think that I know anything about it, Clark?"

"Lois, I know you can! I saw it in your face; in your concern for her as soon as she showed us and I know what Lara taught you! You can read it as well as I can…" Clark exploded, crossing his arms. "Now what do you know that I don't?"

Lois fell silent, drawing a breath, "I'm pretty sure that something's going to happen to Chloe, Clark."

Clark cleared his throat, fear for his best friend coming to the forefront of his thoughts. If what Lois was telling him was true, then this would change everything.

"I don't know what," Lois sighed, continuing, "Lara didn't go into too much detail and I wasn't even supposed to tell you this but….when I saw that mark on her ankle I just…"

"Got scared?" Clark finished for her softly. He knew he was so why shouldn't he have expected the same from Lois?

Lois nodded, looking down at the tea in her hands, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you but Lara wouldn't let me at first and she had good reason. I was instructed to tell you about the sacrifice only in extreme circumstances." She furrowed her brow, a bitter smile rising to the surface of her face as she looked up at him, "Come to think of it, I'm probably going to get into big trouble for this the next time I see her. You interrogating me doesn't really seem like a good enough reason."

"I really don't see how me knowing is going to make a difference, Lois. Besides all that, from what you say, she doesn't sound anything like Jor-El so whatever she would do to you can't be that bad," Clark leaned heavily against the countertop, "Did Lara say how long she has?"

"How long for what?" Lois followed his lead and leaned back next to him.

"To live, Lois. How long does Chloe have left to live?" he asked, his voice cracking slightly. He had given up so much already for his destiny and now it looked like it was going to demand more.

"That's assuming she's going to die Clark," Lois sat up and looked him straight in the eye defiantly. "Lara didn't say anything about dying just…about a sacrifice. Who knows? It could just mean that she needs to get out of Smallville. Maybe not see you for a few years…"

"Let's hope you're right," Clark said softly. "I just don't think it's going to be as easy as that."

"Neither do I," Lois murmured softly as an ominous feeling settled over her, making her uncomfortable.

She had her suspicions that whatever they had set in motion wasn't going to be pretty.

Chloe entered her Dad's house in a sombre mood. Indeed, she had been lied to tonight and she had no idea why. Clark had been his usual self but Lois….Lois had been an enigma and she knew for a fact that she had known more about the tattoo that now sat on her ankle than she had been telling…

"Chloe?" Lana called from the kitchen. "Is that you?"

Chloe followed Lana's voice, going into the kitchen and watching as Lana stood up from the table, coming over to give her a hug. Indeed, they hadn't seen each other for an extra day because of a meeting with one of Lana's professor's that had unexpectedly come up.

"Are you alright?" Lana asked in a concerned voice, genuinely curious as to what had happened in regards to Chloe's new tattoo. She had wanted to get to Smallville earlier but…well, something had come up that she couldn't say no to. Wasn't allowed to say no to at any rate…

Chloe nodded, breaking away from Lana before dropping her purse on the table and sitting down, "Never better. How was the drive back?"

"It was fine…" Lana took in the look on her best friend's face and quirked an eyebrow incredulously. Who did she think she was kidding? She sat down next to Chloe, "Repeat how you are again for me Chloe, this time with feeling."

Chloe sighed in defeat. Was she that transparent tonight? "What if I were to tell you that that I found out what the symbol on my ankle means?"

Lana's eyes widened. She hadn't been expecting that when she had told Chloe to come back to Smallville. No, she had been expecting her to have more questions than answers-that had been the point of the entire encounter and would have solved Lana's own problems admirably-but instead, Chloe had apparently solved the mystery within 48 hours of Lana suggesting she come home.

This would not do at all.

Shaking her head to rid herself of all thoughts of her 'employer,' (although this was probably the wrong title for him because of the way in which he got her to 'work' for him) Lana tried to engage herself in the conversation again. The fact of the matter was that she knew about Clark's secret, although he didn't know she knew-thankfully neither did her employer. She just hadn't thought that Clark would have helped Chloe with her problem so soon after arriving in Smallville. After all, how would Clark have explained to Chloe about the tattoo's Kryptonian roots without revealing his powers and Lana knew for a fact that Chloe had no clue of what Clark could do... "Really?" Lana mused in surprise, "What's it mean then? And how'd you get it? Are you being possessed or something like I was?"

"Or something is probably the right answer," Chloe stood up and went to put the kettle on for some tea. She was so wired right now that she figured she would need it if she were ever to get to sleep tonight. "Clark, our resident cave expert, said he recognized the symbol on my ankle from one of the books he's read from Joseph Willowbrook's collection. Apparently one of his students was able to break the language barrier about a year ago and wrote up something of a dictionary." She inwardly cringed as she lied so easily to her friend about where she had gotten the information. The dictionary thing was the truth at least; there WAS one in production that Dr. Swann's son was working on but it hadn't yet been released. Hopefully Lana wouldn't find this out though. It was times like these though that she wished Clark had told Lana about his powers when they were dating because she didn't like that she couldn't be completely honest with one of her best friends. It was ultimately Clark's secret to tell though, not hers.

'Good lie, Clark…' Lana thought to herself, impressed as always at Clark's skills of hiding his secret from the world. She had been upset at first that he hadn't told her, especially after the year that they had dated but she couldn't say she was surprised. If she had been the one with powers, she didn't know if she would have felt comfortable sharing that secret with anyone outside of her closest family.

"So what's it mean then?" Lana leaned forward, genuinely curious but knowing she shouldn't even be asking the question. It could be disastrous for Chloe should her employer find out about the tattoo. Unfortunately for Lana, she no longer had a choice as to what information she gave to him. Her information, beyond what she could successfully hide about Clark's secret, was not only her own anymore.

"Sacrifice," Chloe looked Lana in the eye. "Although I have no idea what that means, let alone why I have it tattooed on my ankle."

Lana furrowed an eyebrow, confused. "So you have no idea what it means for your life then?"

Chloe shook her head negatively, "No. Not a clue. Clark said he'd talk to Willowbrook for me but I'm not expecting anything in the next day or so before I head back to Metropolis. Clark's good, but he's not that good….even with Lois' help."

Her eyes widened as she suddenly remembered the piece of juicy gossip she had for Lana, one of the only truthful things that she could share with her roommate tonight without spinning a tale to explain how she knew about it. "Oh and I'd just like to say for the record that you owe me $50."

"Why….oh!" Lana's eyes widened in shock, her employer completely forgotten. "Are you serious!"

Chloe nodded, a brilliant smile on her face, "Yep. They did it. I couldn't believe it myself."

"Oh my God," Lana trailed off. She hadn't thought that Lois and Clark would have actually get to the point where they would have sex with each other until after University at least. "When?"

"Five nights or so ago, I didn't really ask," Chloe continue to smile.

"Are they dating then?" Lana asked, mind racing. She didn't know how she felt about this. She and Clark were over but he hadn't been in a serious relationship since they had broken up almost two years ago now and, despite her acknowledgement that she and Clark would never be anything more than really good friends, she still felt a twinge of jealousy about it.

Chloe's smile turned into a smirk, "No. That's the funny part. They're both in denial about it all. They're completely ignoring that it happened apparently and still pretending to be friends. And that's what Mrs. Kent said to me before I left. When Clark and Lois told me, they didn't' even recognize the fact that they were ignoring it at all. It was hilarious."

Lana couldn't help but laugh at this. She had known from the moment that she had met Lois and seen her interactions with her then almost-boyfriend that she and Clark had something-a spark that neither had seen but that everyone around them had- and they had managed to ignore it for years. Sleeping together didn't really allow them to continue this trend in their relationship though and Lana, despite the faint hint of jealousy still inside her, was glad of it.

She just wished she didn't have to tell the man that had seemingly imprisoned her in the last six months. In front of her, Chloe sighed, rubbing her eyes with sleep, successfully reminding her that not only was it late and she needed to be getting to bed, but she still had to phone him with the information she had gathered tonight.

"Well Lana," Chloe murmured with a smile and a yawn. She stood and turned the kettle off. She wouldn't need that tea after all, it seemed, "I'm off to bed. I'll see you in morning?"

Lana nodded, guilt racking her as she watched Chloe get up and leave the room. She got her cell phone out, surreptitiously dialling the number that she had memorized shortly after he had given her the phone in the first place. It rang twice and then…

"Hello?"

Lana bit her lip. She couldn't believe she was still doing this. "She knows what the tattoo means."

"Meet me at the mansion tomorrow. Tell Chloe you're heading back to the city early," he said in an emotionless voice. "And Lana?"

"Yes Lex?" Lana murmured, already planning what excuse she would give to Chloe about her sudden return to Metropolis.

"Good work," he hung up, smiling gently. This was working out better than he thought it would…


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11: Fighting It **

3 Months Later

"Clark, would you concentrate please?" Lois rolled her eyes in frustration. Here she was, trying to guide Clark into what would be his destiny and he was being completely ungrateful.

Clark shot her an annoyed look, "I'm trying to, Lois. Maybe it would be better if you left me alone while I did this. Mom and Dad always do."

"Well I'm not your parents," Lois retorted, standing up from the couch in the loft and crossing her arms. "And, if I might remind you yet again, they haven't been charged with the all important job of getting you ready to save the world like I was."

Clark smirked, looking down at the still liquid bowl of water in front of him. Yesterday at dinner time he had accidentally frozen the stew that his mother had been serving for dinner with his breath, thereby signalling the arrival of yet another power. Lois had unfortunately found out about it that morning when she had dropped by to pick up some books she had left in the loft. This had, in turn, led to the very uncomfortable situation that both he and Lois were in now-with her trying to jump right into her 'role' as tour guide to his destiny. "Taking this rather seriously aren't you Lois?" he murmured sarcastically, watching as she went over to the corner where she had dropped her purse and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

He scowled, immediately dropping the teasing banter that he had been carrying on with her for the last hour as he tried to harness his new power "You told me you'd quit smoking."

"Well I did but the past three months have been rather strenuous," Lois said sarcastically, lighting the cigarette and taking a drag. The fact of the matter was that, based on something Lara had told her, she no longer felt inclined to stem the urge to smoke. Besides all that, she had spent the last three months trying to figure out how to get Chloe out of the almost impossible situation she was in. Yes, it had been determined that the tattoo meant sacrifice but even she didn't know what kind of sacrifice would have to be given. Fortunately for them, Chloe-while concerned- had decided that she would do some independent research and stop interrogating Lois and Clark at every spare moment she had. She exhaled, feeling the nicotine already starting to relax her.

"You two sound like an old married couple," Chloe broke into the conversation, stepping into the loft and taking the seat on the couch that Lois had vacated.

"Chloe, what are you doing here?" Clark asked in surprise. He hadn't been expecting her this weekend...

"I'm not interrupting anything am I?" Chloe raised an eyebrow, smiling teasingly. "That's not a post-coital cigarette is it Lois?"

"Funny Chloe but no, it's not," Lois moved to the window. That joke had gotten old fast but Chloe still insisted on using it because she knew how uncomfortable it made Lois. Indeed, Lois thought she had been doing an excellent job of hiding how much she wanted to hop into bed with Clark again but apparently Chloe had seen right through it…"How many times do I have to tell you that Clark and I have only ever done that once."

"Hey, I'm all for it if you two decide you wanted to have sex on a regular basis but I really think you should start dating first. I mean, it's not like you don't already…" Chloe crossed her arms and leaned back against the couch. Her cousin and her best friend were blind. She knew for a fact that they were-at the very least- in the process of falling in love with each other. The sexual tension that was there between them added to the caring they showed toward each other proved that.

She just wished they would open dig their respective heads out of the sand and take a look for themselves…

"Chloe…" Clark growled warningly. He didn't want to have this conversation again. He and Lois were friends and that was it. Nothing more. No one seemed to believe that though; not his parents, Lucy, Chloe, Lana nor Pete-who had visited only last weekend and congratulated him on finally finding a girl. Despite Clark's insistence's that he and Lois were just friends, Pete had still left with the idea in his head that Lois and Clark were head over heels in love with each other. Clark, of course, had vehemently denied everything.

He didn't think lust counted for love anyways….

"Alright, alright," Chloe raised her hands in surrender. "No more talking about the relationship that wasn't." She finished, using the term that was now popularly used amongst Lois and Clark's closest friends and family regarding their current situation and cleared her throat, noticing the bowl of water that sat in front of Clark. She furrowed her brow inquisitively, watching as he gently blew air through his lips towards the bowl, "Clark, why are you blowing air at that bowl of water?"

"Clark got a new power last night," Lois mused, taking the last drag off her cigarette and crushing it out in the ashtray that she had placed up in the loft for moments like this. Indeed, meeting at the Talon always got the rumour mill going so she and Clark had taken to doing their homework and having their conversations regarding their supposed future in his loft. Smallville after all was a small town.

At the beginning, when Clark had taken to visiting Lois at her apartment as they tried to figure out how to stop what was going to happen to Chloe (sometimes even staying over on her couch), rumours had begun to fly about their non-existent relationship. People had started referring to her as Clark's girlfriend or 'the girl that Clark was sleeping with,' much to amusement of those who knew them, and so they had switched their chosen meeting spot to his loft.

"Really!" Chloe turned to Clark excitedly. "What is it?"

Clark blushed at Chloe's enthusiasm, "I can….freeze things with my breath."

"Or at least his Mom's stews," Lois mused, perching herself on the end of the couch where Clark was sitting and lighting another cigarette.

"I really wish you'd quit," Clark turned another annoyed look on Lois, his embarrassment over Chloe's excitement forgotten as worry for Lois' health overrode previous emotions.

"What are you going to do about it Smallville?" Lois taunted him. She secretly agreed with him but, in an effort to entertain herself by annoying him, she preferred to smoke an occasional cigarette in front of him-and only in front of him.

Narrowing his eyes, he decided to try his new power out on Lois, realizing as he did so that it probably wouldn't work. After all, he had been spending the better part of the evening trying to freeze the bowl of water but he hadn't…..his inward thoughts were interrupted as the cigarette that Lois was holding turned into a mini block of ice in her hand. She dropped it as the ice made her fingers start to numb...

"Hey!" Lois exclaimed, too miffed to notice that, after hours of trying to control it, Clark had managed to freeze something at will. "You want to warn me before you do that, Smallville? That's cold!"

"I'm sorry Lois," he took her hand that had held the cigarette and began to rub feeling back it guiltily. He hated this part of the whole having powers thing. He turned his head to explain to Chloe what had happened…

Chloe simply sat there watching the interactions of her best friend and her cousin. She couldn't imagine two people more ill-suited but at the same time, perfect together. She couldn't believe that they were destined for each other and, as she had discovered in the last three months, watching their relationship grow had become a favourite pastime for her. Indeed, she had taken to visiting Smallville on most weekends just for the entertainment value alone. She watched in amusement as Clark continued to rub feeling back into Lois' hand, smirking as she saw the reluctantly pleased look that appeared on Lois' face. Her cousin was in lust with her best friend and doing a horrible job of disguising it. Clark, for that matter, was also blatantly lusting over her cousin if some of the daily interactions that Chloe had seen were anything to go by. The looks they shot each other when they thought no one was looking alone….

But maybe that's what ultimately drew Clark and Lois together in the first place: the blindness factor.

Clark, noticing the speculative smirk on Chloe's face, awkwardly stopped rubbing Lois' hand and handed it gently back to her. "There….that should do it."

"Yeah," Lois cleared her throat, trying not to speak in the breathy and flustered tone that she felt was eminent. She couldn't believe that just rubbing her hand could be that erotic.

"Thanks Clark." She reached for another cigarette in an effort to put the status quo between she and the object of her lust back in order.

Clark reached up and grabbed the package of cigarettes from her, holding it up in front of him and incinerating it with his eyes. Stressed or no, Lois wasn't getting another one of those toxic sticks of death tonight.

She glared at him, not speaking.

"Don't give me that look Lois, it's an annoying habit and it makes you smell," he grinned unabashedly at her, knowing that it would tick her off and enjoying it.

Lois raised an eyebrow, "You've been noticing how I smell now, Smallville?" She didn't know if this was a good thing or a bad thing. She braced herself for a good fight, the easy out clause that she and Clark had seamlessly created to hide their growing attraction for each other snapping into place.

"OK guys," Chloe piped up, knowing that they were heading into a fight over this issue. Lois, she had learned over the years, always rebelled against those that tried to tell her what to do and Clark had just fallen into the unfortunate category of those who had done that. "No more fighting. I've got questions to get answered and a limited amount of time to get those answers."

"What's up Chloe?" Clark turned his attention to Chloe, thankful for the change in topic.

Chloe sighed, "It's Lana. She's been….different lately and I was wondering if she had said anything to you guys about it."

Lois shook her head, "No. She's seemed fine to me. I don't know though. You saw her yesterday, Clark. Did she seem different to you?"

Clark thought hard about it, verbalizing his thoughts for the women in the room as he did so. "I guess. She's seemed fine but…I agree with you Chloe. She has been different. Almost like she's avoiding us. Me specifically."

"Why would she avoid you Clark?" Chloe furrowed her brow in confusion. Now THAT was unlike Lana. After their break-up, which had admittedly been horrible for everyone involved (and that had unfortunately included everyone they knew…), they had eventually settled into an easy friendship not unlike what they had had when Lana had been dating Jason Teague in their senior year of high school.

Clark shrugged. "I don't know. Every time I see her she comes up with some kind of excuse to leave. Has she been doing that with you Chloe?"

Chloe nodded. "That's what tipped me off first. She's normally so talkative but lately…."

"Well what do you think is wrong?" Lois cut into the conversation softly, leaning back against the couch and stretching out so that she was no longer sitting so much as draping herself over the back of the piece of furniture, directly above Clark.

It was now Chloe's turn to shrug in confusion, "I don't know. Ever since I woke up with the tattoo on my ankle she's been distant. At first I just thought she had a new boyfriend or something-she's always getting these phone calls- but she swears she's not dating anyone….speaking of the tattoo though, have you guys found anything new?"

Lois shook her head negatively. At least she could tell the truth this time-she and Clark hadn't, in fact, found anything worth mentioning to Chloe. They had even gone up to the Fortress of Solitude to ask Lara or Jor-El but both had been tight-lipped about what was to come. "No. Clark even went to New York the other day to talk to Dr. Swann's son about it…"

"…and he didn't have anything to add," Clark finished the sentence for Lois. The truth of the matter was that Dr. Swann's son (who coincidentally was also a Dr. Swann now) HAD told him something new, something that had been prophesized in the original message sent to Earth that the elder Dr. Swann had discovered shortly before his death but hadn't revealed to Clark. He hadn't even told Lois yet so he didn't know how he was going to tell Chloe. In the few short seconds while Lois had been talking to Chloe, he decided that until he and Lois had figured it out, Chloe didn't have to know.

There was no use scaring her anyways.

Chloe nodded, turning her thoughts toward what she had to do tonight since Lois and Clark had set her mind at ease about the tattoo. Tonight was the night that she was going to confront Lana about her weird behaviour, hence the impromptu trip to the farm and the questioning of Lois and Clark. She had wanted to be sure about Lana before she went about making any kind of accusation.

After all, Chloe Sullivan was an investigative journalist and she couldn't ignore the instincts that had been screaming at her for the past month: Lana was exhibiting the same kind of behaviour that Chloe had been when she had been working for Lionel. Add in the fact that she was actively avoiding Clark (something she was pleased to note because that meant that she was probably trying to protect him), and Chloe was almost positive that Lana was in trouble.

And Chloe was willing to bet that she knew who was behind it.

She sighed, standing at the realization that if she was going to do this tonight, she would have to do it before it got too late other wise Lana might be off on another of her 'meetings' that she embarked on late at night whenever she came back to Smallville.

"Are you leaving Chloe?" Clark asked in surprise as she got up from the couch and straightened her jacket. She had just gotten here…

Chloe nodded, "Yeah. I've still got to talk to Lana about this and I want to do it before she disappears on me again."

"We'll see you before you leave tomorrow morning, won't we Chloe?" Lois asked, still leaning over the couch.

Chloe smirked at the picture Clark and Lois made as she nodded affirmatively in answer to Lois' question, "I'll stop by the Talon before I go. You don't have classes tomorrow, do you?"

Both Lois and Clark shook their heads, "Not until Tuesday."

"OK then," Chloe gave into incredulous laughter at their behaviour, walking towards the stairs. Who did they think they were fooling? "I'll see you both tomorrow." She turned at the first landing, smile still affixed to her face. "You two should think about matching t-shirts. Might take the guesswork out for some people."

Lois opened her mouth to respond to this but Clark stopped her with a hand on her thigh. "It's not worth it."

She was silent, letting the hand sit there before getting up and moving to a more comfortable spot on the couch. "We're not that bad, are we Smallville?"

He thought for a moment before shaking his head. "I don't think so. Friends know each other and Chloe and I finish each others sentences sometimes too. You and I are no different." He trailed off, turning his attention back to the bowl of water in front of him and blowing. The water froze, causing a brilliant smile to emerge on his face. He turned to Lois. "I did it…"

"Yes you did," she leaned over and ruffled his hair. "Let's keep practicing though, ok? You could be a lot better…."

And so they continued, Clark using his heat vision to melt the water as Lois watched, smile on her face.

Maybe this destiny thing wasn't so bad after all…

From across town, Lex Luthor entered his bedroom at the mansion and looked down at the woman still asleep in his bed. She always fell asleep after sex and tonight was no different.

He watched as she stirred, raising her head up at him. He came over to the bed and sat, handing her clothes to her as he did so from their place on the floor. "You need to get going."

"What time is it?" Lana lay on her side, shooting him a glare at his rude awakening. This always happened when she came over. She would 'share' with him everything she knew concerning Clark Kent and then they would have sex. She sat up, trying to ignore his licentious eyes as he blatantly perused her naked breasts, putting first her bra and then her shirt on before reaching for her underwear and putting those on too.

Lex watched with hungry eyes as she dressed in front of him, "9 o'clock." It was a shame she couldn't stay longer but she had to get back to the Sullivan's before Chloe got back from the Kent farm.

She was the best he'd had in his bed in awhile...

Lana Lang sighed, biting her lip to keep the tears from forming in her eyes. She didn't want to be doing this- spying on her friends, sleeping with Lex….but her position demanded it of her. If only she hadn't found out what she had. She closed her eyes briefly to block out the humiliation that she always felt after one of her 'meetings' with Lex.

"Hey," Lex stood up and drew her defeated body into his arms, hushing her. "I promise that this'll be over soon."

Lana stiffened in his arms, pushing him away and reaching for her pants, putting them on quickly. She had to get out of here. She didn't look back as she gathered her purse from the dresser where she had efficiently placed out when she had entered this room two hours ago, and left the room as if wolves were at her heels.

Lex smirked as he watched his lover practically sprint out of the room. He hadn't been lying when he said that she wouldn't have to do this much longer. She wouldn't.

Lex Luthor was nothing if not a gentleman when it came to keeping promises.


	13. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12: Lines Crossed**

**One Week Later**

Lex Luthor looked at his watch impatiently. Lana was late. Again. He growled in frustration and took out his cell phone, wondering whether or not he should give her a call to remind her who she was working for.

Apparently she was having trouble remembering…

He looked up from his desk-the former desk of his father that had become his when he took over the company six months ago-at the sound of the door opening.

"You're late," he dead-panned, "Rough drive from campus?"

Lana glared at him, "Well you did call me in the middle of a class Lex. I couldn't exactly leave…"

He paused, taking in the anger that radiated off the woman in front of him. "You're right. I'm sorry."

Lana raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms and sitting down in the chair opposite from his desk, "No you're not. Now tell me what you want. I have a doctor's appointment in an hour."

"Not feeling well Lana?" he murmured cruelly, "Don't worry yourself, this won't take long. I just thought you should know what I've got planned this week so you can look suitably surprised when Chloe comes to you with the news."

"And what's that?" she leaned back in the chair, feeling nauseous. The very sight of Lex physically sickened her. She couldn't believe that he had gotten her to spy on her best friends, let alone how he gotten her to have sex with him.

"The stock's are going down due to the speculation that my father's going to come back to take over the company. Besides all that, I would like nothing more than to merge LuthorCorp and LexCorp and I can't do that with those kind of rumours flying around." Lex leaned forward, continuing. "I'm arranging to have his body surface in one of the local parks. Should boosts the stocks I think."

"I thought you'd gotten rid of it months ago," Lana tried to control her anger, failing miserably. Indeed, this was the reason she had gotten involved in Lex's games in the first place.

She had been there when Lex had murdered his father one rainy evening six months ago and, instead of having her killed to cover the murder, he had seized the opportunity to continue the work that he had begun on Clark Kent the day he had met him, through Lana. Now that their friendship appeared to be over, Clark was fair game again and Lex had picked up his past obsession with zeal.

She swallowed hard, trying to keep herself from throwing up in disgust at the memories. He had made her beg for her life first and then, later, when she had become aware of the possible ways to remove herself from the situation she was in, he had started to threaten her friends. The rest, as they say, was history. She was just thankful that she had managed to keep so much from him…

Lex chuckled lightly, "Now that would have allowed for the possibility of you telling someone, wouldn't it? No, I kept the body around. On ice you could say. There's no telling when a man needs public opinion on his side and I can see no harm in gaining the public's sympathy at this juncture."

"The police will know Lex," Lana felt tears come to her eyes for no reason. That had been happening a lot lately and it for this reason that she was going to the doctors tonight. She didn't want to think about that though, swiftly putting it out of her mind and moving back to the task at hand.

Lex raised an eyebrow, smirking, "You think so? And who do you think is going to let the fine officers of Metropolis come to any conclusions at all?" He stood, going over to the small mini-bar across the office, pouring himself a drink and taking a gulp of the liquor. He held the glass up to Lana, offering her one. She shook her head negatively.

A feeling of pride welled up inside of him, Lana having just confirmed all the suspicions he had had about her and This was good news not only for him, but for Lana. She would get to live a little longer because of it…"Good girl," he murmured, "Wouldn't want to hurt the baby, now would we?"

Lana's eyes widened. She had taken a test last week only to discover that the stomach flu she had been suffering from wasn't just stomach flu. But home pregnancy tests weren't the most reliable or so she kept repeating to herself like a mantra, hoping against hope that she wasn't having Lex's baby. Things were complicated enough as it was without bringing a baby into the picture, especially one conceived under such miserable conditions. Tonight she was going to find out whether or not it was true and she hadn't told anyone, not even Chloe, that she even suspected, "How did you…I mean, I don't even know if I am for certain…"

Lex simply shot her a look, "It's my business to know everything Lana. At least about you. You could potentially ruin me should I let you have the chance." He drank the last part of the whiskey in his glass and sat it down on the edge of his desk. He looked at his watch. Lana's time for this evening was up and he had other things to attend to.

"I assume you know the way out? I have a meeting any minute now," he turned his back on her, pausing at the door to look back at her, "Oh and Lana? Give me a call when you get the results."

And with that, he left, slamming the door to his office in his wake and ignoring the woman who was now crying, soundlessly, at his desk.

Pregnant or not, he didn't have time for her tears…

Lois sat across from Clark in her apartment, both immersed in the large pile of papers and books on her kitchen table between them. She sighed, rolling her shoulders to get some of the circulation back. Indeed, they had been sitting here for at least 5 hours now, trying to figure out what the full meaning of sacrifice in Kryptonian meant. Like many human languages, a lot of meaning was lost in translation and Clark's ancestral language had proven to be no different. She groaned in frustration at her own ability to get nowhere fast, and got up to put the kettle on for tea, filling it up before plugging it in and flipping the switch that would heat the water.

"I could have done that for you, Lois," Clark said, not looking up from the book in his hand.

"I know you could but sometimes I like to do things the old fashioned way," Lois said, smile in her voice as she stretched out her back.

Clark winced as he heard the various cracks and pops that she made as she did this. He looked up, ready to voice his concern and stopped. Maybe it was a good thing that she was stretching. No, scratch that, a VERY good thing. He starred openly at Lois as she stretched her arms above her head-successfully showcasing her breasts in the tank top she was wearing. He shifted in his seat as the sight began to make him a tad…uncomfortable but he couldn't look away, too enthralled by Lois to do so.

Lois caught his eye, smiling slightly as she took in the heat that came with it. "Like what you see Smallville?"

Clark averted his eyes, embarrassed at having been caught staring at her. He cleared his throat, deciding that a change of subject was in the cards for them at this very uncomfortable moment, "What kind of tea are you making?"

Lois sighed, her attention firmly brought back into reality at his question, "Black. I figure we both need the caffeine, especially with the amount of books we still need to get through."

"Did Chloe say what time she was getting here?" Clark cleared his throat, looking down at the book in his hand and desperately trying to get back into the text. It was no use though, Lois' breasts still flashing seductively in front of his eyes, and he found himself setting it down and crossing his arms on the table instead.

Lois shook her head, sitting down at the table again. "She's not coming. Something about a paper being due on Monday that she hadn't started yet."

Clark snorted with laughter, "Since when has that ever stopped Chloe from getting an A?"

"Or you for that matter," Lois said accusingly.

"Speed-typing Lois," Clark leaned forward conspiratorially, "My fingers can move as fast as my legs if I want them to." His smile faltered at the inadvertently heated gaze he got from Lois at these words.

The room seemingly froze around them as his words, meant innocently, sank in. Both remembered just how fast his fingers could move…

A blush rose on Lois' cheeks and she cleared her throat, "That's cheating Clark."

"Not if they don't catch you," he smiled awkwardly, inwardly kicking himself. They had silently agreed that they wouldn't do this yet. Whatever had brought them together in the first place, what would eventually keep them together, didn't have to be rushed. They might be destined for each other but it didn't mean that they had to admit it and, despite the tangible physical attraction that lay heavily in the air around them, neither wanted to be the first to initiate what they knew would be the beginning of the end.

'Or the end of the beginning,' Clark finished silently.

"So," Lois leaned back in her seat. "You were saying earlier that you had found something else out from Dr. Swann?"

Clark nodded, glad for a new topic, "Yeah. You remember the original messages that were sent to earth that I was telling you about? The ones that came with my ship?"

Lois nodded affirmatively, encouraging Clark to continue as she stood and went to the electric kettle, which had come to a boil and turned itself off in the space of their short conversation.

Much like she and Clark, but that was beside the point…

"Well there was a new section that the Institute only just found," Clark finished, standing and going to the cabinet that held Lois' mugs for tea. He sat them on the counter before taking two of the black tea bags out of the small jar in the cupboard and putting those in the teapot in preparation for the hot water that was to come. "It was basically the story of Naman and Segeeth that Joseph Willowbrook told me but with a twist- there was a sacrifice mentioned."

Lois whirled around, eyes wide and barely managing to avoid sloshing the hot water all over Clark. "You didn't tell me that."

"Well, I didn't have all the information and I didn't want to say anything until I knew for sure," he took the hot kettle from Lois' hands and poured hot water into the tea pot to steep.

"And you know now?" Lois asked, wincing slightly as she expected the worse.

Clark simply nodded.

"AND!" Lois prompted, leaning back against the kitchen counter and crossing her arms.

"The answers were sort of inconclusive but Dr. Swann assured me that the symbol was not one that was interchangeable with death. Rebirth maybe but not death," Clark finished, leaning around her to grab the teapot, moving it closer to the mugs and out of Lois' path. Indeed, the last time she had leaned against the countertop here, she had forgotten that the teapot was behind her and had ended up burning herself when she leaned too far back and the pot tipped over.

Clark's super-breath had come in handy that day.

"Really?" Lois drew a sigh hopefully.

"Yep," Clark leaned forward on the counter, towards Lois. "Chloe might…change a bit but I highly doubt that she's going to be dying. At least not in the context that the tattoo is referring to."

"Good," Lois smiled, raising her head to look Clark in the eye. Her smile faltered as she realized how close they were. She gulped nervously, wishing that he would make the first move and back up because she didn't want to. She knew they had to, but she didn't want to. The fact of the matter was that they had been tiptoeing around each other too much in the last 3 months and ignoring the truth- that they both were in lust with each other, if not more but neither was prepared to admit to this so soon.

They had the rest of their lives after all.

"Lois," Clark murmured, not moving, a husky lilt in his voice.

"Yeah Smallville," she leaned forward ever so slightly.

Clark felt a heady fog roll into his brain as he stared down at Lois. He had been fighting it but ever since that night three months ago, all he had been thinking about was when he would get to do it again. The sex had been great but it had been more than that. It had been heat, and passion, and more trust than he had dreamed possible. After what had happened with Lara and what she had told Lois about their supposed 'destinies', he hadn't expected to re-visit this place but fate apparently had different plans for them. "If I were to…kiss you right now, would you let me?"

Lois licked her lips. Should she fight this? "I might have to, you know? You being….stronger than I am…." He didn't let her finish though, as his lips came crashing down on hers.

A resounding 'NO' screamed itself from the recesses of Lois' brain in answer to her earlier question, and she returned the kiss…


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14: Afterglow**

**A/N As you'll all notice, chapter 13 is missing. That's because it's rated too highly for and for that reason, any of you who want to read it and are over 17 should go to this link:**

**http/4everdevoted2cl. to my yahoogroup, the link towhich is posted in my profile.**

**That's about it then. Enjoy the chapter!**

Chloe Sullivan raced into the Talon, mind reeling as she ran through-yet again- what she had heard on the news this morning.

Lionel Luthor had been found-shot to death-in the water at Metropolis Harbour this morning.

The first thought that had come to mind was that she had to tell Lois and so she had tried to call…only to get a busy signal. That in itself was weird but Chloe figured it was just Lois' insane way of making sure she got her reading done interruption free.

"Hi Mrs. Kent," Chloe called as she walked up to the counter and spotted Clark's Mom, thoughts of Lois and her unavailability fleeing her mind.

"Hey Chloe," Martha smiled warmly, "What brings you back to Smallville on a Saturday morning? Clark told me you were staying in Metropolis for the weekend. Something about a paper?"

Chloe shrugged her shoulders, not sure if Mrs. Kent had heard the news yet. "Yeah, well. I decided that it was more important for me to come home this weekend. Dad gets so lonely nowadays and there's no reason I can't get the work done here."

"I wish Clark took that kind of approach," Martha looked up from the latte she had just finished making and set it in on a tray with a muffin. "What with all the research he and Lois have been doing for their assignment, we haven't seen him much. They pulled an all-nighter last night too." She shook her head, "They're going to work themselves to death if they keep this up."

"They're upstairs then?" Chloe mused guiltily. She knew that the project they were working on that was depriving the Kent's from precious time with their son was her fault. The tattoo on her ankle had thus far caused more harm than good but what was she expecting from a mysterious mark that appeared overnight on her body?

Martha Kent nodded, placing a hot chocolate on the tray along with an espresso and a plate of muffins. "I was just about to take this up to them. They were still up when I came in at 6 to open up if the chairs moving were any indication. They must be exhausted. All the books I saw Clark take up there… If you're going upstairs to the apartment, can you take this up with you? The latte's for you..."

Chloe nodded, anxious to tell Clark and Lois the news about Lionel. She picked up the tray and turned away from the counter, beginning the walk up to Lois' apartment.

She paused at the door, knocking before trying the knob. It was locked. "Lois?" she called, knocking harder. She heard scuffling and voices and then….the door was wrenched open and Lois popped her head out, freshly washed from the shower.

"Chloe?" Lois's eyebrows rose in surprise, her voice doing the same. "What are you doing here?"

"Have you SEEN the news today?" Chloe wasted no time in pushing her way through the open door and entering the kitchen, placing the tray down on Lois' countertop next to the still-full teapot.

"No," Lois pulled the bathrobe she was wearing tighter around her body and moving toward the tray of coffee and muffins that Chloe had brought with her. It was times like these that Lois wanted to kiss Clark's mom…

She took a deep sip of the espresso and sighed, the rich and bitter taste hitting her tired palate and waking her up slightly. She was tired, so tired, but that tended to happen when a person opted for an entire evening of sex versus sleep. Not that she regretted her choice but she knew that the day was going to be difficult to get through if she didn't get some sleep soon.

Chloe narrowed her eyes slightly as she looked at her cousin and fully took in the tired appearance Lois was sporting. Despite this, Lois still looked….Chloe looked closer, trying to determine what was up with her cousin this morning. Lois was glowing…"Lois, were you and Clark up ALL night?"

"NO!" Lois lied vehemently. How did Chloe know about last night! Was she that transparent!

"Lois, don't lie." Chloe motioned around the room. "I can tell…"

Lois sat the espresso down on the countertop, "Chloe, I can explain…"

Yes, she could explain. And it went something like this: Chloe, I had wild, passionate, blow-your-brain-out sex with your best friend last night and then when we were done, we did it all over again…and three more times after that….

"I mean," Chloe continued, blissfully ignorant of the raunchy thoughts that were now running through her cousin's brain, "I know you guys are worried about me but you didn't have to spend the WHOLE night researching. Sleep is a good thing Lois."

"Oh," Lois sighed in relief, "Yeah. We know…" she paused, "We were just really concerned about you and…"

"Chloe!" Clark entered the kitchen, still wet from his shower and clad only in a towel, "What are you doing here?"

"Can't I visit my cousin?" Chloe looked at Clark oddly. Both of them were acting weird this morning…. "And what's with the towel? Getting awfully comfortable around here, aren't you Clark?"

"Well I just…" he paused, trying to think up a good excuse for why he was currently standing in Lois's kitchen in a towel. "…wanted the drink that I heard Mom sent you up with. Yep, and a muffin. I'm starving."

"And it couldn't wait until you had some pants on?" Chloe raised an eyebrow, turning to look at the piles of books that had lain, untouched, on the table since the moment Clark had began to ogle Lois' breasts the evening before. From behind her, Clark sent Lois an alarmed look, effectively notifying her that he had noticed Lois' bra still lying beside the table, strategically thrown behind a plant just out of Chloe's sight. Lois sprang forward, noticing the bra now too, and intercepted her cousin at the books, picking one up and dropping it in an effort to mask the pick-up of her bra.

"Lois! Would you be careful of that? That looks like it might have something importa….what's that behind your back?" she narrowed her eyes, her inner reporter smelling a story. Lois was hiding something.

"Nothing," Lois said quickly, turning around and whipping her hand around with her, taking the bra and placing it into the pocket of her robe. She picked up her espresso and took a gulp, continuing to ignore her cousin.

"Lois, that was something," Chloe said, turning to Clark, who had come out of the bathroom with his jeans and a white t-shirt on. "Clark, tell Lois to tell me what she's hiding."

"If Lois had anything to hide, I'm sure she'd tell you," Clark shrugged, picking up his hot chocolate and taking a sip, trying desperately to hide his own panic. He and Lois had talked this morning when they had woken up after their brief 2 hours of sleep and decided that the sex had been too good to deprive themselves of it. Therefore, they had decided to try dating but not to tell anyone know for fear that it would be seen as their acceptance of Lara's wishes. Indeed, Lois and Clark's stubbornness wouldn't allow for them to be together on anything but their own terms. They had to be together because they wanted to be, not because it was destiny.

Although that certainly relieved Clark of the fear that this would all end in pain and heartache like every other relationship he had been in. It was kind of reassuring to know that he was meant for someone, and that there was someone out there meant for him…

Chloe searched the room, looking for more clues as to why both Clark and Lois were acting so strange. Her eyes narrowed again speculatively as a thought popped into her head and she walked into Lois' bedroom. THAT would explain everything.

"Chloe!" Lois cried, stopping her. "Just…stop. I'll explain if you just come ba…"

"Ah-hah!" she held up the ruined blouse that Lois had half-heartedly cleaned up from the kitchen and tossed on her bedroom floor at about 3 in the morning. She had been forced to leave it there though, due to an impatient Clark's need for her to get back into the bed and into his arms.

She was blaming him for all of this after Chloe left.

"Chloe, it's not what you think," Clark tried to explain.

She raised an eyebrow, "So you guys didn't jump each other last night-in the kitchen if the bra that you picked up is any indication-ripped each other's clothes off," she held up the button-less shirt as an example, "and had sex over there on that bed?"

"Ok, so it is what you think," Clark sighed in defeat, taking another sip of his hot chocolate.

"So, are you guys together now?" Chloe continued, going over to the countertop and picking up her latte, following Clark's lead and gulping down some of the excellent coffee that Mrs. Kent had made for her. "And I don't mean just in the biblical sense." A thought suddenly occurred to her as the coffee made a trail down her throat. A giggle started to emerge. "You do know that Mrs. Kent made you the coffee and the hot chocolate because she felt bad that you'd been up all night 'researching.'"

Clark groaned. He didn't want to feel guilt already from hiding Lois and their new relationship but it looked like it was going to end up that way, "Seriously?"

"Well, we kind of were," Lois murmured, happy now that her cousin knew. She knew how important it was that she and Clark keep this a secret for their own sakes-neither wanted to wake up 20 years from now and realize that the only reason they were together was because of their 'destiny,' They wanted to be together because they wanted to be with each other, not because his mother told them they were meant for each other. She took out the bra from her pocket and put it down on the countertop next to the tray.

Clark looked over at Lois, taking in the growing smile on her lips, and joined her, the guilt falling away for the moment. He stepped closer to her and felt rather than saw her draw him into a hug. "Yeah," he looked down at her before sarcastically continuing, "But I don't think she knew that what we were studying was anatomy." His mouth brought hers into a kiss.

"OK then," Chloe rolled her eyes. Something told her that this relationship was going to frustrate her more than anything else. And now that she knew, they wouldn't have to actively hide it from her. She tried to get their attention as she remembered what she had come to visit Smallville for. She groaned as Clark appeared ready to go for 3rd base right in front of her, "GUYS! Enough! Can we get back to the reason I came up here in the first place? If I wanted to watch people making out I would have gone to the bars in Metropolis, not come to Smallville."

Lois broke away from Clark, flushed, wiping her lips and looking dazed, "Sorry Chloe. You were saying?" Clark simply grabbed another muffin, smiling as if he had the meaning of life in his hand and wasn't about to tell anyone.

Something her best friends eyes told Chloe that she probably didn't want to know because, in all likelihood it involved her cousin and she didn't want to know those sorts of details at any point in the near future.

She took a breath, meeting Lois' eyes with her own, "Lionel Luthor's body showed up in Metropolis Harbour this morning."

"WHAT!" Both Lois and Clark exclaimed in shock.

"When did you find this out Chloe?" Clark murmured, dropping the half-eaten muffin on the countertop next to his hot chocolate and turning his full attention to his best friend.

"It's all over the news," Chloe moved to the living room, flipping on the television and changing the channel to the station from Metropolis where the anchor was talking about what Lionel had done for the community, as well as where and when the burial was taking place.

"I better go see how Lex is," Clark murmured sadly. He and Lex might not be the best of friends anymore, but he figured that Lex could use the condolences right about now.

Chloe nodded, "Yeah, he must be devastated."

Lois stood transfixed, watching the television. "Do they know how he was killed yet?"

"Shot," Chloe said softly. "Through the heart apparently. He died instantly."

Lois nodded, thinking hard. Her spidey-sense was tingling. There was more to this than met the eye…"Hey Chloe, how'd the talk with Lana go?"

Chloe shrugged, confused at the sudden topic shift, "It didn't. She made up some excuse and went to the library. I was planning on catching her this morning but she was sick, so I didn't bother."

"What's wrong with Lana?" Clark asked in a concerned voice. Chloe shifted nervous eyes to Lois, trying to determine if she was jealous or not. She was surprised to see that she was not, instead, looking concerned as well. That was odd…

"Don't know," Chloe shook her head, "She's just been sick lately. Throwing up a lot. I hope it's not that stomach flu going around."

"Is she pregnant?" Lois asked bluntly, crossing her arms.

"Lois…" Chloe started, chuckling lightly. That was absurd.

"Well, she could be," Lois said defensively. "I mean, she was dating Lex about six months ago. Maybe they're back together…"

Clark shot her an incredulous look, "She can't be. They broke up and as far as I know, they're not together and haven't been together since their break-up."

Lois returned his look with one of her own. "Right. Cause that immediately means the sex stops. It's called post break-up sex, Smallville and lots of people do it. Kind of like a last hurrah after the relationship ends."

Chloe shook her head, pieces of a greater puzzle falling into place as she ignored the banter that continued on behind her got more heated. She had to talk to Lana and she knew for a fact that she was in Smallville this weekend, having told her about her plans to go home yesterday, when she had left the apartment. "I'm going to go to Lana about this," she walked toward the door, leaving her latte on the countertop as she got to the doorway, looking back at Lois and Clark and trying to decide whether or not they were going to be arguing or having sex as soon as she left. She had a feeling that the latter was probably true, at least now... "Try not to kill each other when I'm gone." She murmured, rolling her eyes, not surprised in the least that they didn't notice her leaving. Kill each other indeed. They were so head over heels in love with each other it wasn't funny.

Not that THEY could see it…

"Bye guys," she called. "I'll let you know what Lana said." She closed the door, wincing as she heard dishes shatter almost as soon as the door had closed. Looks like she had been right about the sex part.

She sighed. Now was not the time to be living vicariously through her cousin's sex life, though. She had a woman to interrogate and she knew just where to find her…


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15: Lana's Secret**

"Lana?" Chloe called into the entryway of her Dad's house as she entered, setting her bag down by the door. "Are you here?"

She entered the kitchen, looking for her friend. Indeed, Lana had mentioned before Chloe had rushed out the door to get home to Smallville that morning that she might be joining her. She didn't know that Lana had actually followed through with her plan though…for all she knew she would be using the phone for her interrogation rather than doing it in person.

Her thoughts were broken as she saw Lana sitting dejectedly at the kitchen table with a piece of paper in her hands. "Hey Chloe," she murmured heavily, raising her head to look at her friend.

"Are you alright?" Chloe asked in a concerned voice, "What's wrong?"

Lana tried, she really did, but the tears that she had been holding back since she had gotten back from her doctor's appointment last night couldn't be held back any longer. She could afford to fall apart in front of Chloe and that had ultimately been the reason she had come to Smallville this weekend. No one, not even Lex, would hold it against her if she confided in Chloe about this…

Chloe watched in shock as Lana's face crumbled and she began to cry. This was unlike Lana, at least in the past few years since they'd left high school. And sure she'd shed some major tears after her and Clark's break-up but since then, Lana had been relatively stable emotionally. Sometimes Chloe thought too stable but that was beside the point, "Oh my God. What happened? Are these tears for Lionel? I didn't know you were close…"

"No," a burst of laughter at the absurdity of that statement broke through her tears. She didn't want to even think about the Luthor's right now; they were the reason her life had seemingly fallen apart around her, "It's nothing like that, I….I've made such a mess of things Chloe."

"How so?" Chloe sat down next to Lana and pulled her into her arms. Lana was silent a moment. With a sniff as she continued to cry, Lana sat up and gave Chloe the piece of paper in her hand.

Chloe gave her a strange look. Why would a paper be making Lana cry so much. Chloe's jaw dropped in shock as she got a good look at the paper. It was an ultrasound. "Lana, are you…?"

Lana nodded, fresh sobs coming to the surface as she fell back into the supportive arms of her best friend.

"Oh God Lana," Chloe said in shock. Lois had been right. "Is Lex the father?"

Lana simply nodded.

"And what, does he not want it?" Chloe posed some possible reasons why Lana could be so upset. Granted, a pregnancy at 21 was not something that she herself could see doing but it wasn't the end of the world. Lana had lots of support-her Aunt Nell, her friends, the Kents (who, despite the fact that Lana was no longer dating their son still treated her as a member of the family, as they did with all of Clark's friends) and it wasn't an unforeseeable problem for her to have the baby and be able to keep it without even considering dropping out of school…

"No," Lana sat up, looking up at the ceiling. And here lay the problem, the key problem that she wanted nothing more than to discuss at length with Chloe but couldn't. Wasn't allowed to if she wanted to be honest with herself… "He wants it. It's just what else he wants too." She paused, thinking back to yesterday evening, after the doctor had confirmed her pregnancy and she had called Lex to tell him the news. He had been…well, Lana was still unsure what emotion Lex had displayed when she had shared the news with him. Clinical was the best word she had thought to describe it so when the courier had showed up later that night, long after they had hung up the phone, she had been surprised.

She hadn't been surprised when she saw what had been in the package though. It was typical Luthor behaviour and she wanted nothing to with it but Lex's note had explained that she had no choice. Indeed, the leverage he had used on her from the beginning had revolved around how much information he had collected on Clark Kent through the years and it turned out that yesterday through one of his contacts at Belle Reve, he had discovered something miraculous: Clark was highly allergic to the meteor rocks. He didn't know how, he didn't know why but she knew he would be moving on to those potential discoveries next. It had come to no surprise then that he would demand that she do what he wanted in light of these recent revelations.

She closed her eyes against the memory of opening the package, finding the engagement ring and then the note that claimed that, should she choose not to accept his 'proposal,' than Clark was going to be getting a meteor rock bullet to the brain within the next 24 hours.

Lana couldn't let this happen.

She and Clark had fallen out of love before they had broken up but the break-up had still been horrible. And, to be completely honest, she still had feelings for him although now they were dormant feelings. She didn't know what to do with them, especially in light of her current situation with Lex, but she did know that if she and Clark were meant to be together, that it would happen again someday.

Feelings aside though, Clark's incredible abilities-gained from the meteor rocks she assumed, although she couldn't say for sure that this is where they had come from-gave him the opportunity to have a great impact on the world around him and she couldn't let Lex take that kind of good out of the world simply because he was jealous or suspicious of it.

Lex had instructed her to tell anyone who asked why she was marrying him that it was because they were having a baby together and Lex thought it would be an excellent idea for their child to have married parents when he or she was born.

The child was a Luthor after all.

"Then what Lana?" Chloe pried further, successfully taking Lana out of her inner thoughts.

Lana cleared her throat, meeting Chloe's eye. "He wants to marry me."

Chloe's eyes grew impossibly huge, "Are you going to do it?" This was crazy. It was like she hadn't been paying attention at all to Lana's life. The person in front of her, once an open book, was a complete mystery to her….

Lana shrugged, sliding on the mask that she had perfected since she began lying to her friends on a daily basis. She liked to think that she was becoming a good actress what with all the lying she had been forced to participate in the last 6 months. That had been when her boyfriend, who had always had a dark side, gave into it entirely. Indeed, it was almost as if Lionel was holding him back, holding the place of…whatever it was…that he felt was rightfully his. Arguably, he had been doing this his entire life but Lana liked to think that this wasn't true.

She had loved him, once upon a time.

The fact of the matter was that he had changed and the very fact that he was able to murder his father in front of her proved that he was not the man she had happily started dating two months before that. It had taken her completely by surprise when, the morning after it happened, he had dragged her into the spy game that he had been playing with Clark since the day he had run him off the bridge with his car. The rest, as they say, was history and Lana had soon found herself doing things that she never had pictured herself doing.

"Lana," Chloe was more insistent. "Is that a yes, or a no? Because this is huge. You're pregnant. Lex proposed. I mean, this is completely not how I pictured this year going for you…"

Lana rolled her eyes, tears forgotten, "This is kind of unexpected for me too Chloe. I'm only 21. This is way too soon for this to be happening."

The room fell silent, Chloe waiting for Lana to continue and Lana trying to articulate what she wanted to say-what she could say.

"I think I'm going to accept the proposal," Lana eventually murmured, so quietly that Chloe almost missed it. "It would be nice for the baby to have both a mother and a father…" The lie sounded better than reality but Lana had to tamp down a wave of nausea as the words came out of her mouth. If she had a choice, she and her baby would be leaving town within the next 24 hours and Lex would never get a chance to see the child. No one deserved to grow up in the same house with that man, or at least the man he had been in the last six months.

"But Lex?" Chloe asked incredulously, shocked by the complacent attitude that her friend was taking in regards to this entire situation. "Lana, he's behaving more and more like Lionel lately. Are you sure that's what's best for this child?"

Lana nodded, fitting the mask more firmly in her skin. She could not afford to mess this up now. Lives were at stake. Lex wouldn't allow anything to come between his obsessive search for the truth of Clark Kent, not when he had worked so hard to get everything into place. Something would have to be done soon to protect Clark's secret otherwise Lana could completely see Lex doing something drastic that would take Clark out of the picture, "I'm sure Chloe. At least I think I am. I just know that I can't do this alone and it's Lex's baby too."

Chloe rose an eyebrow, pleading with Lana to change her mind, at least about the marriage thing. She agreed with a father's right to their child-to a certain extent. This seemed too rushed and Chloe couldn't help but think back to Lex's previous wives and what had happened to them. No one who got connected with the Luthor's came out untouched (she knew from personal experience about this) and she was deeply afraid that if Lana took Lex up on his proposal that she would lose herself, and her child, much like Lex's own mother had, "Women all over the world do the single mom thing everyday. You have a great support system and Lana, he's not the same man you started dating."

"Chloe, I know that," Lana sighed, taking the picture of the ultrasound back and looking down at it. "But it's his baby too."

"But that doesn't mean you have to marry the guy!" Chloe cried out in frustration. "Lana, I've tried to be subtle about this but something happened six months ago-I don't know what-and Lex has changed! I'm more afraid for you than I've ever been since you started dating him because I can completely see you marrying him and losing yourself entirely." She stood up, going to the hallway and getting her purse, where she'd stuck a copy of today's 'Daily Planet' with the story about Lionel. "Did you see this?" she placed the paper in front of Lana. "I assumed you say the news today because you didn't seemed surprised when I brought up Lionel earlier. He's dead, Lana. And I have a feeling that Lex had something to do with it."

Lana threw Chloe a genuinely alarmed look, "No, he couldn't have."

Chloe simply raised an eyebrow incredulously in Lana'a direction and crossed her arms.

"Chloe I'm serious," Lana was repulsed by her ability to now lie so well.

Chloe shook her head. "Well, I don't believe that." She left the room, going to pick up her purse and slinging it back over her shoulder.

"Where are you going?" Lana stood up and followed Chloe out the door, stopping in the driveway and watching as Chloe opened the door to her car.

Chloe turned around, "To find out the truth." She sighed. "Lana, I know you want to believe that Lex is a good guy but this is just too coincidental. I mean, Lionel disappears and then suddenly re-appears, dead? And Lex, over the past six months since his father disappeared has seemed completely apathetic to the whole event? I smell a rat and its name is Lex Luthor."

Lana watched as Chloe slid into the driver seat and started the engine.

Chloe paused as she was about to back out of the drive though, "Hey Lana?"

"Hmmm?" the brunette stared stony-faced at her friend.

"Don't say yes yet," Chloe said firmly. "Not until I know something, alright?"

Lana nodded, successfully convincing Chloe, who backed out of the driveway and drove off in the direction of the mansion. She turned back to the house, walking inside and slamming the door. She had things to do, proposals to accept and ultimately, a multi-billionaire to sabotage from the inside.

She looked down at her still flat tummy and sighed as she began to talk to the fetus of her child, "It's going to be alright. I don't know how, but I'm going to fix this for us."

She just wished she knew how.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16: Invitations and Accusations**

Clark gently closed the door to Lois' apartment, careful not to make too much noise and wake her up. Indeed, after Chloe had left they had…christened…her countertop before moving to the bed. Both tired from the long and passion-filled evening before, followed by the round of sex they had just participated in, they had fallen asleep in Lois' bed. Now at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, Clark was slipping out in order to have that talk with Lex, leaving a still sleeping Lois alone in the apartment.

"Clark?" his mother startled him out of his inner thoughts with her voice coming from the bottom of the stairs.

"Mom!" he responded in surprise, hands moving down to make sure he had gotten all of his clothes tucked in correctly.

Martha furrowed her eyebrows in confusion at her son's behaviour. He didn't normally care about his appearance… "Clark? Are you alright?"

"Yeah," Clark pulled himself together and walked the last few steps into the Talon until he stood next to her. He and Lois had agreed to keep this….whatever it was….quiet, at least for now and he wasn't about to let anything slip, even to his mother.

"Alright then," Martha murmured suspiciously. She couldn't put her finger on it, but something was different about her son this afternoon. "How did the researching go? Did you finish the assignment?"

"Sort of," her son shrugged his shoulders, looking down at his hands. How was he to tell his mother, that, not only had Lois and he lied about the true meaning of their researching, but instead of participating in this endeavour they had spent the evening screwing each other silly in Lois' apartment? The truth of the matter was that he didn't trust himself to be able to look his mother in the eye and not blush, hence the reason why Lois had lied to his mother in his bedroom months ago. He was a terrible liar, he knew this for a fact and it would do no good for him to start trying to lie now. No, in this circumstance Clark Kent decided to do the thing that could get him out of this 'talk'-he changed the subject. "Look Mom, I don't really have time to talk. I've got to get over to Lex's to see how he's holding up after…"

"Oh yes," Martha nodded her head, looking sad. "Poor Lex. Let him know that if he needs anything, anything at all. We're here for him."

Clark raised his eyebrows incredulously. "You and I are, you mean. You know how Dad feels about Lex."

"But Lex doesn't need to be reminded of it Clark," his mother shook her head. "Not when something like this happens. He must be crushed."

"Yeah," Clark murmured, thinking back to the moment that Chloe had shared the news of Lionel demise, "When Chloe told Lois and I the news, I couldn't help but wonder what I would do if you or Dad were to…"

"I know," Martha sympathized. "But we're not going anywhere Clark." She drew a sigh, turning away and walking across the Talon to the counter, reaching behind it and bringing out an apple pie that she had meant to stock the dessert tray with, but that she thought would be better served by going to Lex. "Take this to him if you're going. I know everyone sends food for a family member dies but…"

"Mom, I'm sure he'll like that you thought of him," Clark cut her off with a half-smile.

Martha returned the smile. "Good. Well then, you better get going. What time should we expect you home tonight?"

"For dinner I think," Clark said, "I have to talk to Chloe before she heads back to Metropolis and I'd rather do it tonight."

"Alright then," Martha nodded, accepting the kiss on her cheek that her son gave her and watching as he turned to leave the Talon. The smile that had sat on her face gave way to a smirk as the door closed. Clark had covered it well but a mother knew when something monumental had happened in her sons life. There was something in his eyes that told her that something huge had happened last night-something wonderful.

And she had a feeling that that something had everything to do with Lois.

"Lex?" Clark called as he entered the study at the mansion.

"Clark," Lex looked up from the papers he was reviewing concerning LexCorp's takeover of LuthorCorp. The transition would be easy as Lionel had left everything to his son but legal matters needed to be taken care of before this could happen.

"How're you doing?" Clark asked sympathetically, sitting down across from Lex next to the fireplace.

"Alright," Lex put the legal document down on the coffee table.

Clark shifted uncomfortably. He had no idea how to go about having this conversation with Lex. Their friendship had changed in past 3 years. Lex had changed. He had become more and more like Lionel as the years had passed. He didn't know if Lex had always been this dark or whether this was simply a repercussion of living in the shadow of his father for years, but whatever it was, it had ultimately driven a wedge of disillusionment and suspicion in the friendship that he and Lex had once shared.

"Is that for me?" Lex smiled gently, motioning to the pie that was now sitting on his coffee table.

"Oh! Yeah," Clark said, pushing the pie towards Lex and looking down at his feet, again not knowing what to say. "Mom gave it to me to take to you when she found out I was coming over here."

"Yeah," Lex murmured. "It IS an odd occurrence. The last time you came to the mansion was…."

"…a while ago," Clark said apologetically.

"It's alright Clark. Both of us know that things have changed."

Clark sighed. This wasn't going how he had planned. He hadn't meant to come over to talk about the failings of his once great friendship with Lex Luthor. In fact, he preferred not to think about it at all. Lex had been becoming darker since Clark's first year of university and this, Clark had found, was something that he couldn't prevent. As Lex's moral compass had shifted, Clark had found that his had only grown more concrete. At the end of the day, he had found that he couldn't be friends with someone who lied as much as Lex did.

Lois, upon learning of Clark's heritage had reflected upon the reasons for the failure of the friendship and laughed her ass off. If Lex only knew that the reason Clark couldn't let himself have a close friendship with the billionaire was because of his own secrets...Clark couldn't lie nearly as well as Lex and because of that, the gap between them had grown exponentially as his fears of the exposure of his secret grew.

"Well, I still want to tell you how sorry I am about your father Lex," Clark said quietly.

"Thank you," Lex looked down at his hands. He too was sorry that it had to be this way but circumstances had required that his father disappear one way or another; Lionel had been a barrier to his own success. He would forever be remembered by Lex as the man who had made him what he was today and for that, he would always be thankful.

"If there's anything I can do…." Clark continued, feeling better now that the conversation was moving into safer waters.

Lex stood, "Actually, there is," he stood up, walking over to his desk and picking up an elaborate piece of parchment from the stack that one of his employees had sat there this morning. "I'm having a Charity Ball in my father's honour next Saturday in Metropolis. I was hoping you'd come." He handed Clark the invitation. "That's for your parents too in case you were wondering."

Clark furrowed his brow. "Lex, are you sure you want to do this so soon after finding your father's body? No one would think less of you if you needed a few weeks to grieve."

"This is how I grieve Clark," Lex sat back down. "Besides, my father wouldn't have wanted his name to fade into nothing because I chose to indulge childish emotions. He would want to be remembered immediately, and forever."

Clark paused, looking Lex in the eye. He sighed as he saw that his former best friend was serious, "Alright. We'll be there." He stood, picking up the invitation and slipping it into the inner pocket of his jacket. "Are you sure you're alright then?"

Lex let out a chuckle, "Yes, Clark. I'm fine. Thanks for the concern."

"OK," he sighed for the second time in as many minutes. "I'll see you next week then?"

Lex nodded, "Next week Clark. Oh, and thank your Mom for the pie."

Clark nodded, turning away from Lex and heading out the door.

Lex watched stony-faced as Clark shut the door to the study, and sat back down next to the fireplace. Everything was coming into place.

He started as his cell phone began to ring, "Hello?" He smiled as he recognized who it was, "Lana, to what do I owe the pleasure of your call?"

He listened to Lana's voice for a moment, his smile growing bigger as the words he had been expecting from her were verbalized for him.

"Excellent. I'll send the papers over tomorrow and we can take the jet to the Bahamas on Friday," he smirked into the phone, responding to Lana's expected words. Indeed, he had expected that she would accept his proposal simply because he knew how much she cared for her friends. It was a fault that he had been exploiting since they began dating. To make the situation even better, he knew for a fact that she was getting sick of taking orders from him and that she would accept him, in part, because of the 'damage' she could potentially do as his wife.

But he wouldn't be allowing her to do that.

He hung up the phone after Lana murmured a sullen good-bye, looking up from the spot in the fire he had been staring at. To his surprise, he was no longer alone.

"Chloe, what can I do for you today?" he stood, putting his cell phone into his pants pocket as he did so and walking over to the liquor cabinet and pouring himself a drink. "Can I offer you a drink or is this not a social call?"

"No," Chloe strode into the room, stopping in front of Lex. "It's not. I'm here to talk about Lana and the baby she's carrying."

"So you heard," Lex turned his back on Chloe and moved to his desk, leaning back against it. "Aren't you going to congratulate me? I'm going to be father."

"Well I would," Chloe said sarcastically, crossing her arms across her chest, "But I don't make it a habit to congratulate murderers on their reproductive capabilities. Seems wrong somehow."

Lex fell silent, concentrating on his whiskey and stilling his features into stony neutrality. He didn't know how Chloe knew about that but there was no way that he was going to admit it. He let out a chuckle, continuing this unexpected conversation with new resolve. "I think I'd remember murdering someone. Whatever you're trying to say Chloe, you're way off track."

"Oh really?" Chloe countered, stepping forward. "Because I know for a fact that Lionel Luthor's body wasn't freshly murdered when they hauled him out of the Harbour and I'm willing to stake my future career in journalism that you had something to do with it."

"And how did you get this information?" Lex drawled, playing up her accusations as some kind of joke. And they were. After all, even if she HAD found anything regarding his involvement in the murder, no one was going to believe her.

"I know some people on the Metropolis Police force," Chloe said with resolve. She had gone from mere suspicions of Lex's involvement to near certainty when she had received the call from one of her friends who had recently graduated from the Metropolis Police Academy in her car on the way over to the Mansion. He had told her that Lionel Luthor hadn't been killed anytime recently. Indeed, the police department had found him to have had evidence of being frozen for at least a few months.

"Anyone I know?"

"No," Chloe narrowed her eyes at him.

"Oh come Chloe," Lex let out a burst of laughter. "These are just rumours. Look, I'll have the full police report tomorrow morning and I'm personally going to offer you a chance to look at it. You can come by tomorrow and I'll…"

"Don't try to talk your way out of this Lex," Chloe stepped even closer to him. "I know you have connections to cover this up but I'll still find out what really happened. You're the only one who had access to the funds to freeze Lionel for months on end in what I've been told was as close to cryogenic as scientists have gotten thus far, and the motive to pull it off."

"And what about Intergang?" Lex retorted. "Or the Mob? How about any of the other business associates he made enemies of over his years in business?"

"You're forgetting one thing," Chloe shot him a smug look, "LexCorp is the leading corporation in cryogenic research. No other company has come close. I will find out, Lex, and when I do, whatever you've got Lana blackmailed into doing is going to end."

"And the accusations keep flying!" Lex exploded. "I think it's time for you to leave Chloe. You've now officially overstayed your welcome."

"Why!" Chloe replied passionately. "You've got Lana doing something for you. That's why she's been acting so strangely. I know you and she haven't been dating because she would have told me, or Clark, or even Lois. I mean, your relationship wasn't kept a secret before, so why start now? And now, suddenly, she's pregnant, and you proposed? A pay-off I would have expected but marriage? You don't do well in that department Lex. Something is wrong with this scenario and it started around the time the police are saying Lionel was actually killed. So that leads me back to you."

"I'm calling security," Lex picked up the phone on his desk.

"Don't bother," Chloe said bitterly. "I got what I came for." She turned to go out the door and stopped, turning back around and meeting Lex's eyes. "It's not too late Lex. Your father may be dead but that doesn't make you a bad person. It's not too late to change back into the Lex Luthor of yesteryear. There's still a good man inside you, I know it."

The room fell silent, both of them simply looking at each other. Chloe thought she saw the slightest hint of remorse but then….a wall went up and she knew that Lex Luthor, at least the good-hearted man who had phoned MetU and gotten Lois back into University, posted bail for she and Clark 3 years ago, and ultimately been one of her friends for a short time, was gone. She sighed, it being blatantly obvious by the tone of the gaze she was receiving in return from the bald billionaire that she wasn't getting through to him. She turned again, this time leaving the study completely.

If she played her cards right, this story was going to be the one to get her into the bullpen of the Daily Planet.

From his study, Lex pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, dialling swiftly and placing the phone to his ear. "Yes, I need to speak to your boss. I have a job for him."


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17: Repercussions**

"Lois!" Chloe called as she let herself into the apartment above the Talon, remembering the situation she had walked into this morning when she had arrived here uninvited. She closed the door behind her and put a hand in front of her eyes, just in case. "If Clark's here, the two of you better be decent…"

She was startled as her cousin tapped her on the shoulder, having been sitting in the living room reading a book when Chloe entered the apartment, "God, Lois, you scared me. You and Clark are…finished…for the day then? Or should I come back later?"

Lois crossed her arms, shooting her an annoyed look before moving into the kitchen. She had been thinking about getting up to make herself a cup of tea when Chloe had let herself in anyways, "Nice to know you think so highly of me Chlo."

"Just calling it like I see it Lois. You two were all over each other when I left this morning if the sound of the breaking dishes was any indication" Chloe returned the annoyed look with a smirk. She followed Lois the few steps into the kitchen. "Where IS Clark if he's not here?"

"He's not here ALL the time Chloe. He had to go visit Lex," Lois said defensively, shrugging as she filled the kettle with water and sat it on the stove, turning it on and sighing. She had woken up to an empty bed and that had depressed her unexpectedly. She and Clark weren't at the point yet where she was allowed to feel this way. It implied that she had deeper feelings for the man and that wasn't allowed-not now anyways. She was only 22. It was too soon to be finding someone she felt so strongly about and for that reason, Lois Lane found herself putting on a resolve face and shoving the ill-timed feelings into a box for later perusal.

'Now this was new,' Chloe thought as she watched her cousin sigh sadly. Lois didn't sigh over guys…"Lois?" Chloe raised an eyebrow incredulously, sitting down at the table. Her cousin didn't sigh, not like that anyways. "Are you alright?"

"Mm-hm," Lois murmured as she looked up from the stove. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Chloe quirked an eyebrow before letting out a sigh of her own, taking in the look of content on her cousin's face and knowing that if she chose to verbalize what she was thinking that Lois was going to get defensive. She always did when it came to her feelings, "You're in love with him, aren't you?"

"With Clark?" Lois stilled her face in what she hoped was disbelief. Truth be told, she didn't know what she felt right now but whatever it was, it was something she had to figure out herself before she told anyone. She shook her head negatively, coming over to the table and sitting down next to her cousin. "Did Mrs. Kent slip something into your latte this morning Chloe?"

"Lois, I haven't seen you this happy in years," Chloe crossed her arms across her chest and looked her cousin in the eye, "And if I'm not mistaken, you're glowing."

"I'm in love with the sex, Chloe. That's all," Lois retorted irritably. She did NOT want to be having this conversation right now. "And if there is a glow about me, I can assure you that it has nothing to do with any romantic feelings I may or may not be having and everything to do with the amount of orgasms I've had in the last 24 hours…."

"OK!" Chloe threw her hands up defensively. Trust Lois to get anyone off her case with too much information. "I'm just saying, you look like a woman in love."

"Well I'm not," Lois said stubbornly, crossing her arms. It was time to change the subject and she knew exactly how... "Now tell me what happened with Lana because I know you were going to see her today. Was I right?"

Chloe's face turned solemn as her cousin got right to the heart of why she had come back to the apartment tonight, "Yeah, you were. But that's not the worst part…"

"What's IS the worst part then?" A familiar male voice called from the doorway.

"Clark," Chloe smiled as her friend came into the apartment and gave her a hug. "Lois told me you went to see Lex."

"I did," he gave Lois a quick kiss before sitting down opposite Chloe at the table. "And it was very…awkward, so I left. Now what was this about Lana that's got you so worried, Chloe?"

Chloe sighed. She knew that this wasn't her secret to tell but Lana needed help and Chloe was prepared to get it to her anyway she could. If that involved letting the people that loved her know what she had confessed today then she was willing to betray that trust. She just hoped she was making the right decision…"Well, I found out today that Lois was right- Lana's pregnant. And Lex is the father."

Clark stared at Chloe in shock, "Are you serious? How did this happen?" He took in the identical looks of disbelief that the cousins gave at his stupid question and he re-phrased it. "I mean, they weren't together. They HAVEN"T been together for months now. What changed?"

"I don't know," Chloe shook her head. "She didn't say. She did say that Lex proposed though."

Clark's eyes, if it were possible, grew wider in shock, "He didn't say anything about that when I saw him today. Are you sure that's what she said?"

"She was pretty upset about it Clark," Chloe murmured. "I guess his proposal came as a shock but I got her to wait on accepting him until I finish the investigation I'm launching about him."

"And just what are investigating Lex about?" Clark raised an eyebrow, genuinely confused.

Chloe's eyes met Clark's, "His father's murder."

"WHAT!" Lois broke into the conversation. "Chloe, are you sure because last time I checked, the only thing that Lex ever murdered was trade barriers to LexCorp's cryogenic technology in China."

"Yeah, Chloe," Clark joined in. "It doesn't make much sense."

"Sure it does," Chloe continued. "I mean, think about it. Lana started acting weird after her break-up with Lex, which coincidentally happened around the same time that my source at the Metropolis P.D. says Lionel Luthor's body actually died. That was my first clue. Then, I found out that Lionel's body showed evidence of cryogenic freezing, something that LexCorp has been making tremendous technological breakthroughs on in the past few months. Add to that the fact that this information has mysteriously been covered up, and Lex suddenly seems like the culprit."

"I don't see how this has anything to do with Lana," Clark said in a confused voice. Chloe's evidence was convincing but he was still unsure of what to believe. Chloe was often right but, despite their strained friendship, he still believed that Lex didn't have the kind of hate that would make him kill his father in him.

Chloe nodded, "That's what I'm still trying to piece together. He's got Lana blackmailed into doing something I think. She wouldn't even be considering marrying him if he didn't have something on her, baby or no."

Clark sighed as Chloe finished, rubbing a hand against his temple. This was not good. If Chloe was right, and she generally was, then she was in trouble. If he was wrong about Lex, than that meant that other lines previously uncrossed might suddenly disappear. He wouldn't put it past a Lex who had murdered his father to hide it anyway he had too. "Chloe, you didn't happen to tell Lex your theory, did you?"

Chloe fell silent.

"Chloe…." Lois, having known immediately where Clark's mind was going, growled warningly.

"OK fine!" Chloe cringed. "I went over to the mansion after I talked to Lana and confronted him about it."

"Chloe, if you're right and Lex did murder his father, and he knows that you know, than you're in danger. Did you think of that?" Lois's voice took on a panicked tone. This was no good. Sometimes she hated her cousin. After all, she and Clark had spent the last three months finding out that Chloe's tattoo didn't mean anything potentially life threatening, thereby getting her out of the death sentence that they had originally thought 'sacrifice' meant, and Chloe went and immediately got herself into a situation that could potentially put her in danger.

"No," Chloe looked sheepish. "I was just thinking of Lana…."

"And that's admirable," Lois continued, standing and moving to take the now boiled kettle off the stove, pouring the water into the teapot that sat on the countertop. "But you may have just put yourself on Lex's new list of people to kill should they get in his way."

"Lois, I'm sure it's not that bad," Clark leaned forward on the table and crossed his arms. "We don't even know if Lex did it or not, let alone that he would care enough about Chloe knowing something to kill her."

Chloe looked between Lois and Clark unbelievingly before retorting sarcastically, "Thanks guys. You're really making me feel good about this. I'm so happy I chose to share this information with you."

Clark sighed, "We're just worried about you Chloe."

"Well don't be," Chloe stood up from the table, gathering her purse. "I can take care of myself. I'll see you guys next weekend then?"

"Chloe, didn't you just get here this morning?" Clark rose an eyebrow, standing up and leaning against the countertop.

"Yeah, but I've still got that assignment due on Monday and I need to spend the day in the library tomorrow," she answered, giving her cousin and Clark a hug before walking to the door.

"Just don't get killed Chlo," Lois called as Chloe reached the door. "I'm not going to your funeral if you do."

Chloe quirked a smile in her cousin's direction, "You didn't come to the first one. I hardly expect you to start now. And don't worry. I'm not going to get killed."

"Why am I not convinced by that promise?" Lois murmured as she watched her cousin shut the door behind her.

"Well, she lacks credibility," Clark drawled in an effort to lighten the mood that had fallen over the kitchen.

Lois narrowed her eyes at Clark, "You're not making me feel better. I can't believe she did that."

"I can," he looked her in the eye. "You would have done the same."

"No I wouldn't have," Lois argued. "I have more sense than that."

"Uh-huh," Clark rolled his eyes, walking over and picking up his jacket that he had draped over the kitchen chair he had been sitting in when he came into the apartment, "Says the woman who went to taunt Lionel Luthor in jail after her cousin was supposedly killed by the man."

"And just where do you think you're going?" Lois demanded, crossing her arms as she did so. "You just got here…"

"I promised Mom I'd be home for dinner tonight," he said, teasingly un-apologetic.

"Oh," Lois tried to keep the disappointment from her voice as she busied herself pouring a lone cup of tea. She had been hoping he might want to go see a movie or something tonight.

She paused as she felt Clark's arm go around her waist.

"But I also promised her when I went home after seeing Lex that I'd bring you along with me," he breathed into her ear. "Now get your jacket. Mom's making pot roast tonight and we don't want to be late."

"Really!" Lois exclaimed, disappointment forgotten as she thought of the home-cooked meal that Martha had cooked. The food was probably the thing she missed the most about living on the farm with the Kent's. "I love your Mom's pot roast. Is she making Yorkshire pudding too?"

"Just for you Lois," Clark raised an eyebrow. "Although I don't know how you can eat that stuff…"

"Hey! You try living in England for 2 years and not pick up some strange eating habits. I'll have you know that lots of people like Yorkshire pudding," Lois retorted, getting her jacket and slipping it on before moving onto her shoes.

"Well they obvious don't live in Smallville," he mused, opening the door to Lois' apartment. He paused though, a thought crossing his mind as he leaned against the doorframe with one arm. "Hey, Lois?"

"Yeah?" Lois replied, waiting for him to move the arm that was now blocking her way out the door.

"Did you….want to tell them about what we decided last night?" he asked hesitantly.

Lois raised an eyebrow, "To try dating you mean?"

Clark shifted uncomfortably. Lois always had a way of making him feel like the stereotypical woman in their relationship. Indeed, he had discovered in the last 24 hours that, while she would let him play the dominant figure when they were in bed together to a certain extent, she had real trouble talking about feelings and the like. This left Clark to broach these subjects, like the one he was currently bringing up, and thus put him in what was decidedly the stereotypical woman's role. "Well, yeah."

"Is it important to you?" She smiled shyly at him, tamping down the wave of happiness that had unexpectedly leapt from her chest. The prospect of being Clark's girlfriend shouldn't excite her this much.

"No," Clark denied, the tone in Lois' voice embarrassing him. Why did she always have to make fun of him when he wanted to talk about emotions and their place in their relationship? Even in their friendship she was the same way…

Lois forced herself to halt the impulse to roll her eyes. Clark had to learn to be more assertive if only so that Lois could stop having to read between the lines with him, "So it IS important," she looked him in the eye and sighed. "Alright."

"Just like that?"

"Well, I trust your parents, Smallville," she sighed. "But I'm not going to lie to you. The fact that we're supposed fated for each other is very scary," she met his eye. "This is all new and I'm only 22. For that matter, you're only 21. I know that it's possible to find someone you're meant to be with early on in your life but for you and me, it's different. It's not just feelings that are involved. It's destiny." She cleared her throat. "Supposedly anyway.

"I want to keep it quiet until I'm sure that I'm ready for whatever it is we're going to be. If you want to though, I don't see the harm in telling your parents about the acknowledgement of this 'relationship,' whatever it is. Chloe knows after all…"

Clark let out a relieved breath and moved his arm from the doorway, not wanting to answer Lois on this subject. He felt that he should be telling her he loved her or something equally romantic but he knew that he didn't. Not yet anyway. He knew what she meant though-he had thought for awhile that he and Lana were meant to be. His feelings, his hormones-_everything-_ had told him that they were soul mates.

But he had been wrong.

With this new relationship, there was no guesswork involved-they were meant for each other, or so his biological mother had told them. He was scared about this. The guesswork was what made life interesting after all and he didn't know how he and Lois were going to handle it.

"Are we done then?" she said impatiently, anxious to remove herself from this conversation. It made her uncomfortable... "There's a roast and a pan of Yorkshire pudding with my name on it and you're preventing me from getting there with all this feelings talk. Let's go, Smallville!" She slipped under his arm.

Clark let out a chuckle as he locked the door and shut it, following Lois down the stairs. Somehow he could tell that any life he would have with Lois Lane would be anything but predictable.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18: Formal Dress **

"I don't know how you've gone this long without learning how to do this right," Lois rolled her eyes as she came up behind Clark and took his tie from him. A week had passed since they had 'officially' begun to date-at least in the eyes of Clark's parents and her cousin. At the moment, Lois was still unsure how she felt about the whole situation. A part of her was admittedly thrilled that it was happening. Something about Clark had always seemed familiar to her but since she had begun to acknowledge that there might be something there, the familiarity had grown to the point that she had begun to miss him when he left her.

And if this new dependency wasn't enough to freak her out, she had been finding it harder and harder to verbalize this fear. She had never needed someone the way she appeared to need Clark. It wasn't that she was afraid of commitment. Well, that was wrong. Lois Lane was DEFINITELY afraid of commitment. After all, while her body might be sure that she needed Clark, her mind wasn't in agreement just yet. The relationship that she and Clark were currently in could very well be forever-and most likely would be if the principle of fate was in anyway accurate.

In an attempt to get her mind on board with what her body was telling her, she had decided to get to know Clark romantically minus anything of a sexual nature. This, she had failed to take into account, was still their preferred form of emotional conveyance though and ranked right up there with the banter they still participated in as much as possible.

They had ultimately decided to act as if they were just starting a relationship and didn't have a destiny to consider. With this in mind, Clark had taken her to the movies on Tuesday night and it was there, on their first official date that her decision to hold off on a sexual relationship until after they had had 5 dates-generally her rule when it came to dating-had failed horribly. They had given into it after coffee at the Talon and he had ended up spending the night. On Wednesday they had a study session for their upcoming test in her apartment. On Thursday, he had gone home to do his chores and to sleep in his own bed for the first time that week and on Friday, Lois had packed a picnic lunch that they had shared in the park across from Central Kansas after their classes were over for the week.

And now, they were at the farm, getting ready for the Charity Ball that Lex was holding in his father's memory.

She handed him the tie that she had put a perfect Windsor knot in and stood up from the bed, grabbing the red dress that she had bought specifically for this event off of Clark's desk chair.

"Where are you going?" Clark asked, watching as Lois opened the door to his room, leaving with her dress in her hand.

She raised a teasing eyebrow in Clark's direction, "I need to change and you and I both know how your parents feel about you in co-ed situations."

"Lois, I slept here once this week and I they didn't appear to be bothered by it. They know what we're doing," Clark teased her back, coming forward and dragging her back into the room, closing the door and drawing her into his arms simultaneously. "And they've either realized that I'm old enough and responsible enough, or maybe they just like you more than Lana because they apparently don't care as long as we don't make them grandparents before you and I finish University," Clark took the garment bag out of Lois' hands and removed the dress, handing it to her and dropping the bag on the bed. "But if it makes you feel better, I can turn around when you change."

Lois met Clark in the eye and smiled, letting out a little chuckle as she did so, "Really? More than Lana?"

Clark returned the chuckle unexpectedly. Trust Lois to pick up on that part of what he had said to her. It wasn't like she didn't like Lana. She just liked being compared favourably to the woman who had been Clark's first love, especially by his parents. He supposed he felt the same way in comparison to A.C., or some of her other boyfriends but, as Chloe had pointed out to him earlier that week when he had phoned her to see how the Lana situation was, every girl liked to be reassured that their boyfriend wasn't still hung up on former girlfriends. While his call regarding his ex's situation was one that Lois had encouraged him to make, he felt compelled to let her know that it meant nothing and secretly hoped that she would do the same should A.C. come into the picture again. For some reason, they had both been rather possessive of each other since they had begun this relationship and, while he didn't fully understand why (and didn't want to understand since that would make him ask too many awkward questions that he didn't want answers to…) he was willing to go with it.

He leaned down and drew the object of his possessive thoughts into a kiss, feeling her return it almost immediately, "Yes, more than Lana. Why do you think you get invited over to dinner so often? They like your company…"

"And I like theirs," Lois returned the kiss before breaking away. It was good to know that his parents felt that way, even if it was petty of her to think it. She closed down this train of thought though, as the clock on Clark's bedside table caught her eye and she got back to the issue at hand-the fact that somehow she needed to get changed, "OK. Turn around then."

Clark raised an incredulous eyebrow. He was hoping he could watch…

"No," Lois crossed her arms, knowing after a week of sleeping together what that look meant but also knowing what would happen if she let him do what he apparently wanted to do. "You're not watching. Now turn around or I'm changing in the other room."

"It's not like I haven't seen it before…" Clark grumbled, turning around and hearing, rather than seeing, Lois' jeans hit the floor.

"Doesn't matter, Farmboy," Lois took off her shirt, dropping it on the floor with her jeans. "I spent too much time on my hair and make-up before I came over here to have you mess it up. Watching leads to groping and groping leads to things that will definitely ruin my hair."

She grabbed her dress from the bed where she had lain it when she had begun to disrobe herself, and slipped it on. "Ok. You can turn around now."

Clark did as he was told, not knowing what to say as he took in the dress that she was wearing. It was really familiar. He paused, furrowing a brow as he tried to remember. Helicopters and American flag bikini tops suddenly made an appearance in his brain… "Wait, isn't that…."

"Kind of," Lois said, referring to the red halter dress that she had found in one of the upscale stores in Metropolis after her stripping incident back in Clark's and Chloe's freshman year. It hadn't seemed right somehow to wear the dress that some sicko had forced so many girls to wear but she had liked how she looked in it so much that it had gotten put on her list of things to look for when she was shopping and she couldn't resist buying it when she finally found it. She reached for the matching heels that she had brought with her and slipped them on. Lex was sending a limo for them and it had made more sense for her to drive out to the farm than for the limo to come to her. "I liked it so much that I bought one just like it."

"Couldn't you have just kept the last one?" Clark handing her purse to her and the matching wrap she had bought to go with the outfit before opening the door to his bedroom.

"One of the guys that was holding me had an accident with my fist and bled on me. By the time I got it to a drycleaner, it was irreparably damaged," Lois stepped out the door. "And besides, there were too many bad memories associated with the fabric. The stripping alone…." She shuddered, remembering her awkward exotic dancing debut. That was a memory she would like to have stricken from her memory. The embarrassment of that situation still stung, "Then of course the kidnapping. I threw it out."

She didn't mention that the stripper costume she had worn had escaped from her captor's ill-placed blood and now hung in the back of her closet. That was her little secret.

Clark nodded, a grin coming to his mouth as he remembered the evening in question, "I kind of liked it actually."

She shot him an un-amused look, "I knew YOU would. You're a guy. A guy who got a REALLY good look at my breasts that night. Of course you liked it."

"Well what was I supposed to do!" Clark protested, not liking her accusations in the slightest. "You practically shoved them in my face."

Lois sighed, stopping before they started down the stairs, "It's okay Smallville. I understand. I was totally checking you out that evening I found you in the corn field so we're even." She patted him on the cheek. "OK?"

Clark simply stood there a moment, once more speechless.

But then Lois had had that ability since the moment he had met her so he shouldn't be surprised.

"Clark!" Lois yelled impatiently from the bottom of the stairs. "Are you coming? The limo's here!"

And with that, he descended the stairs and left the house, closing the front door behind him. They had a party to go to.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19: Warning Shots **

"Lois! Clark!" Chloe called from across the vast ballroom in Lex's mansion with a champagne flute in hand, having spotted her cousin as she entered with the Clark.

"Chloe," Lois smiled broadly, drawing her cousin into a hug. "How are you?"

"Good," Chloe murmured, turning to Clark and giving him a hug.

"Have you heard anything about Lana?" Lois piped up, having not had a chance to get a Lana update as the week had gone past. "Do you know what she's doing with…."

"The baby?" Chloe finished Lois' sentence. "She hasn't wanted to talk about it so I stopped pressing the issue for now. Instead, I've been investigating our would-be murderer."

"And what'd you find out?" Clark asked quietly, grabbing two champagne flutes from the waiter who was passing them and handing one to Lois.

Chloe suddenly looked pensive, opening her mouth to speak. She was interrupted however, by the sound of Lex's voice over the sound system.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, can I have your attention please?" he drawled from the podium where he was standing.

"I'll tell you later," Chloe hissed quietly, turning her attention to the billionaire at the podium.

Lex cleared his throat, "I'm so happy you all could come out to support this event. I'm sure my father would have been pleased with the outcome. This evening, we've helped raise over half a million dollars already and the evening's still young. On that happy note then," Lex motioned for Lana to join him at the podium. This was going exactly as he had planned…. "I would like to share some news with all of you-friends and colleagues of both my father, and myself-that would make my father very happy were he alive today."

"Yeah," Chloe muttered sarcastically, low enough so that only Lois and Clark could hear her voice in the crowded ballroom. "And if you hadn't killed him, he would be…"

Clark sent her a look of warning, turning back to Lex, watching as Lana hung on his arm with a smile on her face.

Lana smiled broadly from Lex's side, putting on the mask of cheer that she had been instructed to wear since returning from the Bahamas that morning after marrying him. It had been perfect; white sands, palm trees, heartfelt vows. Perfect.

Or at least it would have been if she hadn't of been coerced into marrying the man in question, and if she hadn't of been given the vows that she had read. The press didn't know the difference though, and by tomorrow morning, it would be all over the news that Lex Luthor had finally married- and for love no less. A picture, after all, means a thousands words and her new husband was nothing if not capable of providing the correct picture for people to make judgements on.

She was interrupted from her thoughts as Lex continued, drawing her closer to him and taking her hand. "This morning, on a secluded beach in the Bahamas, this lovely woman next to me-Miss Lana Lang, became my wife."

The crowd, as Lex had expected, erupted with congratulations. This was going exactly like he planned. His next piece of news however, was the stock raiser and he was going to milk it for all it was worth, "I'm also pleased to announce that Lana and I are expecting a baby in 6 months time."

Now the crowd was positively roaring with happiness for him and Lex couldn't be more content. If things worked out like he thought they would, he would be merging Lexcorp and Luthorcorp by tomorrow.

Lana fought back a wave of nausea at the waves of smug arrogance that emanated off Lex. More than ever, she wanted to take down the bastard she now called husband, once and for all. "Lex, she murmured a sufficient distance from the microphone so that only he could hear her speak, "Are we almost finished here? I'm feeling a little light headed from all these people."

"You have things to do Lana," Lex murmured coldly, also out of range of the microphone as they stepped down from the podium for a moment. "You remember our agreement? Don't you? Now you have to mingle and make nice with the middle management."

"I know, but Lex," Lana didn't care that she was lying now. She had to get out of here. She felt dirty after the day of lying she had participated in and, at the moment, the last thing she wanted to do was cater to Lex's whims. "I'm really not feeling well. I think I might pass out if I don't sit down soon."

Lex met her eye, smirk faltering as he took in the wan look of his wife. At the end of the day, Lex Luthor wasn't a complete bastard and he DID care about the child Lana was carrying. Besides all that, perhaps it was better if Lana left the ballroom. Safer at any rate…"Alright, just give me a moment." He turned back to the microphone. "On behalf of myself, my new wife and the memory of my father, I just want to thank you all for coming tonight. Enjoy the evening."

He stepped down to more applause, turning his attention to Lana. "You're really feeling sick? You're not just trying to get out of this?"

"Yes, how many times do I have to tell you?" Lana leaned heavily against him, purposely making breathing heavier, as if she were really going to pass out. The truth of the matter was that she didn't think she had it left in her to lie to her friends, who she had seen from the podium were all in attendance tonight. She was feeling fine, but Lex didn't have to know this.

Lex nodded, taken aback at the way she had just leaned on him but keeping his composure. Lana hadn't willingly leaned on him-physically or emotionally-since the days before she had watched him kill his father. "Do you need help getting up to your room?"

Lana shook her head. At rare moments like this, she saw the Lex she had fallen in love with re-appear, if only for a few minutes. There was still some good in him but she was seeing it less and less… "No, I'll get one of the security guards to help me up. You need to…stay here, do the schmoozing thing. I'll be fine."

"Alright," Lex gave her a peck on the cheek, more for show than for anything else and signalled for Jerome, his head of security, to come over to them.

"Yes Mr. Luthor?" Jerome came to stand in front of the couple.

"Mrs. Luthor isn't feeling well," Lex said quietly. "Can you escort her up to her room please?"

"Yes Mr. Luthor," his head of security responded.

Lana sighed in relief and turned away from Lex, following Jerome out of the room, but knowing that Lex was watching her every move as she left the ballroom.

"Is she alright?" Chloe said from behind him, having noticed Lana's abrupt departure.

Lex nodded, "She'll be fine. She's not feeling well."

A chuckle escaped her, "Wow Lex," Chloe said bitingly, "That actually sounded like you cared."

The multi-billionaire turned to her, his trademark smirk on his face, "That's because I do, Chloe. Contrary to popular belief, I DO have a heart. She's having my child. For that reason alone, I care."

"That's all she is to you though, isn't she?" Chloe cut right to the chase, sick to death of what the man in front of her had done to Lana. She had spent the last week examining the evidence surrounding Lionel Luthor's death and had come to the conclusion that, barring a complete confession to the contrary from Lana, she could safely assume that Lex had been using her since the day he had murdered his father. She didn't yet know why, but, based upon Lana's behaviour-and her very sudden trip to the Bahamas to marry Lex (a great shock to Chloe, Lois and Clark whose collective jaws had dropped when Lex made his announcement mere minutes ago) she was certain that whatever she was to Lex, it wasn't the love of his life and this was unacceptable to Chloe. Lana was one of her best friends and she only deserved the best.

And Lex was far from the best.

"Well that's a rather harsh accusation," Lex crossed his arms, ready to do battle with the woman in front of him.

"And yet I'm almost positive it's true, just like I'm sure you were responsible for your father's death," Chloe mimicked his movement and crossed her arms too, staring him down-or at the very least, trying to.

Lex was silent a moment, looking down at the floor and trying to decide how to formulate his next words. They had to be biting but not threatening, conversational but not confrontational. After all, if something were to happen to Chloe or someone close to her in the next 24 hours, he didn't want it traced back to him. "Look Chloe," he started, watching from the corner of his eye as Clark started towards them, having been listening in across the room and, upon hearing Chloe go into her Take-No-Prisoners reporter mode, decided to act as mediator. "I don't know what your problem is with me but whatever it is, you should get over it. Lana's my wife now and for your information, she's very happy about it. As for my father who you so callously accused me of murdering, he's now buried under six feet of dirt in the Luthor family plot in Metropolis. Now I'm going to tell you this again and hopefully this time you'll listen: I had nothing to do with it and I'm willing to prove it to you." He cleared his throat, "And if you have a problem with Lana and I, I suggest you take it up with her because, contrary to what you appear to think, she married me voluntarily. I didn't force her on the plane and I certainly didn't make her say I do."

He paused as Clark joined the heated conversation, "Clark, maybe you can help me out here. Chloe seems convinced that I somehow forced Lana into marrying me."

"Well, you have to admit it IS rather sudden, Lex," Clark said uncomfortably.

"What can I say?" Lex smiled. "We're in love and we're having a baby. I thought it best to get married before the child's here."

Chloe snorted in laughter, rolling her eyes at the completely bogus answer to why Lex and Lana had run off to the Bahamas and gotten married. The truth of the matter was that Lana had not seemed like a woman about to become happily married this week. She had been apprehensive, and seemingly afraid to talk to Chloe. Somehow Chloe knew that if Lana WERE going to be happily married, she would have at least told her friends in the hopes that they would be there for the ceremony.

Clark shot her a warning look. "Congratulations Lex," he turned his attention back to his former best friend. "I'm happy for you."

"Thank you Clark," he murmured, looking pointedly at Chloe as if to showcase his innocence. If Clark Kent believed him, he knew, then Chloe would be more likely to drop her investigation.

But something told him that Clark's thoughts on the matter of Lex's innocence wouldn't matter much right now. Indeed, Lex noticed and was slightly afraid by the look in Chloe's eyes; she would take him down without a care in the world if given the chance.

He would have to do something about that…

He cleared his throat. "If you'll excuse me though, I have some people I need to speak to before the night is over and I can't stay here and chat all night," Lex said, not even waiting for a formal acknowledgement to his departure, instead turning and walking away from Chloe and Clark. He reached into his pocket for his cell phone, flipping it open and dialling a number.

"Yes Mr. Luthor?"

"Do it," Lex said simply, not even saying good-bye as he hung up and placed the phone back into his jacket pocket.

"What was that?" Clark hissed into Chloe's ear as he pulled her out of the Mansion and into the garden.

"What was what?" Chloe crossed her arms and rolled her eyes in exasperation. Lex had been about to tell her something, she just knew it, when Clark had joined the conversation.

"That!" Clark pointed back into the house angrily. As soon as Chloe had crossed the room after Lex's announcements, he had begun to listen in to the conversation and hadn't been at all pleased with the way Chloe had ambushed Lex. It wasn't that he didn't think Lex deserved the words that he had received it was just that, like Lois, he was concerned for Chloe's safety.

"I was just trying to figure out why Lana married him," Chloe crossed her arms and sent Clark an annoyed look. "I would think that you and Lois would be interested in that too."

"And we are, but did you have to be so aggressive about it?" Clark drew a deep breath, watching as Lois came out into the garden. "Chloe, you can't keep doing this. You don't know what…."

"…he might do to me?" Chloe retorted. "Clark, as I told you, I'm a big girl and I don't need a brother looking out for me. I'll be fine. And besides, it's not like he was willing to tell me much and for that matter, he's drying up all my sources. The possibilities of me solving this case, while good, or not so good to warrant Lex putting a hit out on me."

"What'd he say then?" Lois cut right to the chase, effortlessly becoming Good Cop to Clark's Bad Cop as she crossed to the small area of the garden where Clark and Chloe had been heatedly speaking.

Clark glared at the woman now standing next to him, "Lois, can you please focus? Chloe here seems intent on getting herself killed, even after all the work we did to try to get her out of…"

He was cut off as Chloe cut in confusedly, "Wait, what work? Is there something you guys aren't telling me about?"

"Way to go Clark," Lois shot him a frustrated look, taking in the now angry face that her cousin now wore. She sighed. "Look, Chloe, it's about the tattoo."

"What about it?" Chloe demanded. "I thought you guys figured out what it meant. No big deal. And what does it have to do with how I'm treating my investigation into Lex Luthor?"

Clark sighed, "Can we save this until later? People are going to start looking for us if we stay out here much longer."

"No," Chloe brought her arms out of their crossed position and sat them on her hips. "This can't wait. I want to know what you two have been keeping from me."

Lois exchanged a look with Clark before beginning what she knew was going to be a long story, "Chloe, it's about the tattoo. You know how it means 'sacrifice' in Kryptonian? Well, there's a little more to it than that…"

A sharp sound interrupted whatever she had been going to say however, as pieces of stone flew out of the wall behind them.

Someone was shooting at them.

"Look out!" Clark drew Chloe and Lois closer to him, covering their bodies with his own and throwing them to the ground. He had heard the first bullet leaving the gun but had been concentrating too hard on how he and Lois were going to explain everything to Chloe to have done anything more than catch the bullet should it have come close to them. As it were, it had missed the trio by a foot and buried itself in the stone wall of the house. He felt, rather than saw as another bullet bounced off his shoulder, and then another…

Lois buried her face into Clark's shoulder, heart beating wildly as her flight or fight instincts rose to the surface. She listened as another ten or so shots went into the wall behind them before stopping completely. She moved out from under Clark after a moment of silence, staying close to the ground and pushing herself up onto her knees. "Chloe? Are you alright?"

"Yeah," Chloe said in a strained voice as Clark moved off of her. She met Lois' eyes with her own, taking in the scared look that was on her cousin's face. "What?"

"Chloe, you're bleeding," Lois pointed to a spot on Chloe's shoulder that was indeed wet with fresh blood.

"That's not her blood," Clark said heavily, clutching a hand to a spot above the left side of his ribcage and breathing heavily as he fought to stay conscious. "It's mine."


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20: Wounds**

"Oh my God," Lois murmured, her heart racing as she watched Clark bleed in front of her. "How is this possible?"

"The meteor rocks," Clark coughed as he let Lois and Chloe lower him onto the grass covered ground that was now rapidly turning red with his blood. As far as he could tell, at least one of the bullets that had been shot at them had been made of kryptonite if the way he felt was any indication. The rest of them had just bounced off of him but this one, the one that was currently lodged close to his ribs in his chest, had slid into him like a hot knife through butter. He coughed again, tasting his own blood in his mouth before letting go of the wound in order to let Lois and Chloe get a better look at it.

"It's going to be okay Clark," Chloe shushed him, moving his jacket out of the way and opening his dress shirt so that she and Lois could figure out how to get the kryptonite laced bullet out of him. The fact of the matter was that they couldn't take him to a hospital-she had been on the receiving end of many a similar scenario with Clark and meteor rocks to know that all they had to do was take away the rock and he would heal on his own. The problem with not going to a hospital however, lay in the fact that, not only did she and Lois not have any tools to work with but even if they did, only Lois had even the slightest training as to finding and removing the bullet. She was broken out of her thoughts by another cry of pain that emerged from the man on the ground. She watched as her best friend closed his eyes…

"Don't even think about it, Smallville," Lois practically snarled at Clark, slapping him hard across the face and shaking him alert. "If you die on me, I'll never forgive you." Her voice cracked slightly as she watched Clark grow steadily greyer, and she desperately racked her brain for a way out of this situation. She was going to have to take the bullet out... "How many did you get hit with?"

"One," he slurred, eyes closing again and his breathing coming more shallowly. "It felt like one anyways." He let out a groan as the kryptonite made his blood boil faster, the blood in question travelling like lightening through his veins and leaving behind excruciating pain.

"Lois, we need to hurry," Chloe placed a hand on the wound to stop some of the bleeding, all the while watching as her Clark's lips started to turn blue.

"Oh shit," Lois cursed, beginning to panic as she examined his wound, "How deep do you think it's in there?"

"I don't know. Can you get it out?" Chloe asked, checking to make sure that Clark was still breathing. She was useless at this kind of thing but Lois, with all her years spent on military bases had picked up some skills that at the time had seemed like completely random things to learn. One of these lessons had included first aid training specifically intended for war situations. These, as Lois had found out quickly, had included handling and dressing a number of different types of wounds-one of which had been how to retrieve a bullet out of a man's chest. She'd never had to use this knowledge though.

"With my bare hands?" Lois looked at her cousin incredulously and shook her head. She couldn't perform miracles after all. If the bullet had been lodged in the top of the wound, it might be easier to get out but she knew just from looking at it that it wasn't. She looked around the garden desperately, looking for a garden shed where Lex might possibly keep a pair of pliers-anything to help her with this task.

She sighed in relief as she spotted a toolbox that the gardener had left outside behind. "Chloe, go see if there's a pair of pliers in that toolbox over there." She turned back to Clark, slapping his face again-lightly this time-and getting his attention.

"Lois?" he murmured, eyes fluttering and breathing growing more laboured.

"Yes Clark?" she said softly, watching out of the corner of her eye as Chloe emptied the toolbox and searched frantically for something with which to pull the bullet out of his chest.

"If I die…"

"You're not going to die," Lois protested, her voice cracking again and this time, accompanied with the beginnings of tears. "You can't, remember? Destiny, Clark. You're doomed to live with me for the rest of your life and there's no way I'm letting you out of that now."

A chuckle left his body, followed shortly with a groan as the laughter as pain wracked him. "But I might. Just…tell my parents that I love them, ok?"

"I will," Lois was openly crying now.

"And Lois?" he said, feeling the world begin to narrow as darkness began to engulf his consciousness. "I love you too."

And then, without a sound, he closed his eyes and stopped breathing.

"CHLOE?" Lois cried in shock, "He just stopped breathing….where's the pliers!"

"I got em!" Chloe got up from her position on the ground and ran over, placing the pliers in Lois' hands.

"Hand me your champagne," Lois demanded, motioning for Chloe to give her the untouched champagne that had somehow managed to survive the attempt on their lives.

"Lois, this is not the time to…." Chloe handed her the glass, watching as Lois poured half the glass over the top of the pliers in an attempt to disinfect them and then poured the rest directly into the wound.

Lois shook her head, tears forgotten as she got down to the task at hand. "It's a good thing you can't feel this Clark, cause this is going to hurt." And with that, she spread the broken skin with the pliers, feeling around for the bullet and praying that it had hit bone, thereby making it less likely that it would be lodged so deep in his chest to make it impossible for her to retrieve it. If she failed at this, Clark would die and she couldn't let that happen….

Suddenly she felt it, a little shard of metal. She grasped it with the pliers, all the while thanking the Gods above that Clark had so many ribs that the bullet had gotten trapped between two of them. She jimmied it around, trying to get a better hold on it. His blood was making it difficult for her to grab it though...

"Do you feel it?" Chloe demanded impatiently, tears now falling down her cheeks at the seemingly dead body of her best friend lying in front of her.

"Yeah, just give me a moment…." She moved it around, finally grabbing it with her fingers as it cleared the skin. She held it up for Chloe and herself to see. It looked like a regular bullet save for the glowing green colour it was sporting. "Voila."

Chloe drew a sigh of relief, knowing exactly what to do with it, taking it from her cousin. She tossed it into the garden, at this point only caring that they got it as far away from Clark as possible.

They watched in wonder and fear as the wound the bullet had made started to close, both waiting for Clark to start breathing again. Ever impatient, after 20 seconds of this, Lois began CPR.

"Chloe, he's still not breathing," Lois said quietly after five minutes of giving him mouth to mouth, not willing to give up hope but also acknowledging that, while he looked like nothing had happened to him, he was still deathly pale and lacking any form of respiratory function.

"I know Lois," Chloe murmured. She choked back a sob.

Her best friend was dead. Again.

"Maybe you should go get his parents. They'll want to know what hap…" Lois was interrupted from her numb musings by a gasp as Clark suddenly began to breathe again.

"Thank God," Lois sighed in relief.

"Should I still go get Mr. and Mrs. Kent?" Chloe asked, smiling as Clark continued to breathe-much to the happiness of her cousin, who didn't look up as she asked her question. With a sigh, she decided to take Lois' silence as a yes and got up from the grass. Mr. and Mrs. Kent weren't going to be happy about what had happened tonight…

Lois nodded silently, not willing to look away as Clark breathed, afraid that he might stop again. She continued her staring until Mr. and Mrs. Kent joined her in the garden, fussing over their son and thanking her for saving his life.

She didn't notice the remarks though, caught up in only one thing now that she knew he wasn't going to die: Clark loved her.

And she was pretty sure she loved him too.


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21: Love**

Clark opened his eyes slowly, wincing as the light from the lamp stung his eyes. He groaned in distaste, closing his eyes and freezing as what had happened at the mansion rushed back to him in fragments.

He had been shot. Again.

Opening his eyes, he took in his surroundings. He was in his bedroom at home, tucked firmly into bed and-he looked down his body-someone had changed him out of his suit and into his nightclothes.

He sat up, feeling his chest for any signs of where the bullet had entered his body and-unsurprisingly-came up empty. It looked like he was back to normal.

Sighing, he got out of bed and ran a hand through his hair, taking in the fact that it was now 2 in the morning. Disregarding this fact, he decided that, regardless of the late hour, he was restless and what's more, he was hungry. With this in mind, he went downstairs, pausing as he got to the bottom as he heard the voices of his parents and…

…Lois. His heart skipped a beat as a memory from earlier that evening came back in full force.

He had told her he loved her and he had meant it. He wondered what she thought of him and more importantly, if she loved him to. For this reason, he hesitated at the foot of the stairs. If he went in, he would have to deal with this but if he went back upstairs to sleep than he could take the evening to fully process his feelings before facing her….

His stomach made the decision for him though as it growled its discontent and forced him into the kitchen.

"Clark!" His mother noticed him first, standing and rushing over to embrace her son tightly against her.

"Mom," Clark smiled, hugging her back. It was at that moment that the events of that evening hit him hard; he had almost died tonight. He hugged his mother more tightly to him, happiness at being here to give that hug overwhelming him.

Martha Kent let him go, placing a hand on his cheek and returning the smile with a concerned look on her face. "How're you feeling?"

He shrugged, looking down at the floor, "Good I guess. I'm alive at least."

"And we're glad of it," Jonathon came over and hugged his son, following his wife's lead. "When Chloe came to get us…we thought the worst…"

"I'm alright, Dad," Clark murmured, looking over his shoulder and smiling at Lois, who was watching his exchange with his parents patiently.

"You stopped breathing Clark," his Mom said, shaking her head. "And from what Lois tells us, you didn't breathe for five minutes after she took the bullet out."

Clark raised his eyebrow at that. Lois constantly surprised him. He would have expected her and Chloe to have gotten his parents, who had dealt with getting kryptonite bullets out of him in the past, but he hadn't been expecting her to have played doctor on him-and not in the fun way… "Lois took the bullet out?"

"Well," Lois stood up and casually shrugged her shoulders, "Chloe handed me the pliers and the champagne. But yeah, I took it out." She crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes teasingly, "By the way Smallville, you owe me a dress. You bled all over me."

"Did I?" he smirked, matching Lois' infectious attitude. He was going to have to ask her about it in more detail later. Her rapid changing of the subject spoke volumes as to her feelings on the matter of her impromptu moonlighting as a surgeon. It had shaken her up more than she wanted to let his parents-or even Clark-to know about, "I'm sorry."

"Well you should be," she said calmly, belying the sharp pounding of her heart. The truth of the matter was that she had been overjoyed when Clark had entered the kitchen, so much so that she had had to restrain herself from getting up from the table and making out with him just so she'd know he wasn't going anywhere. Her eyes told him something else though, and she knew from the look he was giving her under the oblivious eyes of his parents that he felt it too.

He had scared her tonight, more so than she thought was possible. She had never thought she'd feel this much for one person and it had taken one moment of abject terror when that person had been lying in front of her bleeding to death to make her acknowledge these feelings.

She made a mental note not to do that again.

Clark cleared his throat, diverting his eyes from Lois' and trying to quell the reactions in his body that her hungry gaze had had on him. "What happened to Chloe then? You said she helped you with the bullet?" He furrowed his brow, "And did you guys find out who was shooting at us?"

Martha watched as her son and his girlfriend tuned out her and Jonathon's presence in the room-eyes only for each other- and smiled. She moved closer to her husband and looked up at him. Apparently he was also enjoying the banter because he was smiling as much as she was. From her position near the entryway into the kitchen, she listened as her son's stomach growled loudly.

"Hungry Smallville?" Lois quirked an eyebrow up as she took in the loud grumblings of Clark's stomach.

"Well, getting shot took a lot out of me," he shrugged.

"Clark sweetie, you should have said something," Martha went to the refrigerator and looked into its depths. "What are you hungry for?"

"It's okay Mom," Clark said, going over to the fridge and closing it so that his mother would stop fussing over him. "I just want a sandwich and I can make that myself."

"Are you sure?" Martha asked concernedly.

He let out a chuckle, exchanging looks with his father, who had also been on the concerned end of Martha Kent many a time. "Yes Mom. I'm fine. I think I can manage a sandwich."

Martha sighed, leaning up and placing a kiss on her son's cheek. "Alright. Your father and I are off to bed then. If you kids need anything…"

"We can make it ourselves," Clark teased good-naturedly. "Sleep well. I'll see you in the morning."

He watched as his parents left the kitchen, waiting until he heard them finish walking up the stairs before looking Lois in the eye, this time having no intention of stopping his feelings from showing.

Being shot and almost dying had proven to be a wake-up call for him. Indeed, as he was lying there in Lex Luthor's garden, his own blood pooling around him and the kryptonite bullet lodged in his chest making pain radiate through his body, he had come to a conclusion: life was too short to put off something as wonderful as what he and Lois could have, but had been denying themselves because of it being supposedly 'too soon.' This was destiny and moreover, this was destiny that his biological parents had set into motion. He figured that if he and Lois wanted to be together, than they should be. He just hoped she felt the same…

He listened as Lois came up behind him as he got the ingredients for his sandwich out of the fridge and sat them on the counter.

"Do you still want to hear about Chloe, or did you want to wait for the morning?" she asked, boosting herself onto the countertop and worrying her lip. She was nervous; unsure if what she thought she had been seeing in Clark's eyes was right or not. Since she, Chloe and the Kent's had brought him back to the farmhouse-unconscious but breathing- she had tried to rationalize what Clark had said to her in the garden.

He told her he loved her but, as her Super-Ego had kept pointing out to her overly romantic Id (who didn't get the chance to talk often and so was quite verbal in this particular battle…) that ALL dying people said things they thought they meant on their deathbeds, but that they didn't actually mean if the situation had been different.

Her Id, at that point in the debate, had pointed out that Clark was always more honest in extreme circumstances and therefore meant every word out of his gorgeous mouth.

At that point, Lois hadn't known what to think and still didn't.

He looked up at her as he put the turkey sandwich together. "Tonight's good." He went back to the fridge, putting the mayonnaise jar and the package of turkey on the shelf before grabbing the jug of milk and taking a swig from it. He had been shot tonight, so he figured his mother wouldn't be upset if he drank from the bottle.

"Well," Lois uncrossed her arms, reaching up to the cupboard closest to her and grabbing a glass, holding it out expectedly to Clark, a 'what-would-your-mother-say look on her face as she began to answer Clark's questions from earlier.

"Chloe went to her Dad's place but she told me she'd be back in the morning because, and I quote, 'getting shot didn't absolve you from a full explanation of her tattoo as researched by Lois and Clark,' end quote."

Clark took the glass from Lois, rolling his eyes as he poured the milk into it and put the jug back in the fridge. He took a bite of his sandwich, listening as Lois continued.

"What else did you want to know about…." She mused, "OH! The bullet, that's right. Yep, she helped with the bullet. Threw it into the bushes," she shot Clark an apologetic look, "Sorry if you wanted to keep it. We were concentrating more on getting it out and away from you than anything else."

"It's alright Lois," Clark said softly, taking another big bite of his sandwich and listening to the woman in front of him.

"No, actually, it's not," Lois looked down at her hands, "We don't know who fired those shots and where they got the special bullets from. I should have kept the evidence. Might have learned something about what kind of gun they used at the very least."

"Lois, it's fine," Clark walked around the kitchen island, taking the last bite of his impromptu meal and chewing.

"Well," she looked up, meeting his eyes and knowing if she continued to argue this point, they would only start fighting. She found herself strangely reluctant to do that right now. They had things to talk about and Lois had questions only he had the answers to. "At least you're okay," she paused.

Clark cleared his throat, knowing from the looks that she was shooting him that she was thinking about what he had said to her before he passed out. Indeed, he had learned the many facial expressions of Lois in the past few years (although he had learned even more in the past week….) and one of them he liked to categorize as her emotional shut-down face. She had been pulling that one out a lot lately.

He hadn't been thinking when he told her he loved her earlier. No, that wasn't right. He HAD been thinking, perhaps for the first time since he and Lois had embarked a week ago upon, when they had chosen to at least try a relationship. The truth of the matter, he had found, was that Lois Lane had been his best friend for years-although neither had chosen to admit it and for that reason, they shared an instinct in regards to each other that he didn't have with most other people.

Chloe and he had always been close but from the first moment he had met Lois-and remembered meeting Lois-there had been something there that had continually drawn them together time and again. Maybe it was destiny, or maybe it was the pheromones and animal instinct that Lois had tried to explain their first night together but whatever it was, it wasn't going away. On the contrary, it was only deepening.

With this in mind did he speak his next words, intent on quelling the doubt he saw in Lois tonight, "I meant it you know," he murmured, feeling scared. He had told Lana that he loved her, and he had thought he had meant it but now he knew better. That hadn't been love at all in comparison to the way he had come to feel about Lois. She was his world now and he wanted to protect her and love her, have children with her and, in the end, die next to her, "I didn't just say it because I thought I was going to die."

"What do you mean?" Lois looked down, not willing to let herself believe that her Id had been right. Her Id was never right…

"I meant," he said softly, walking up to her and taking her chin in her hand, smiling as he forced himself to be self-confident, "Lois Lane, that I love you."

A smile grew on Lois' face. She had gotten so good at hiding her feelings over the years that she had stopped thinking she needed to hear that someone loved her. The fact that it was Clark Kent that was telling her it, finally, was crazy but funnily enough, the reason she found it crazy was that she wanted to tell him she loved him back.

She had only ever told her father that, and even this had been sparingly. Boyfriends had never been that serious that she had felt the need to get emotional with them. But with Clark….she wanted to be with him forever, have his babies and die next to him when they were old and grey and because of that, she knew that what she felt had to be something special.

Clark watched as she started to smile, a secret look on her face as she looked at him happily, "Lois, are you alright?"

"Yeah," she murmured, starting to giggle. He loved her and damned if it wasn't the best feeling in the world…

Clark raised an eyebrow, forgetting for the moment that she hadn't returned the sentiment as he began to laugh too. Lois didn't giggle often but he found himself wanting to make her do it more now that he had been reminded what it sounded like.

"Did I say something funny then?" he continued to smile although Lois could hear the insecurity creeping back into his words. It was time to do something about it…

"No," she leaned forward and kissed him lightly in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. "I've just never told a man other than my father that I love them before and I'm nervous about how to do it."

Clark released a relieved gust of nervous laughter, their faces touching lightly as they played with an almost kiss. "I was hoping you'd say something like that."

He kissed her now, softly at first but then with more feeling.

"Lois," Clark murmured into the kiss. "We still have to figure out who shot at us tonight."

"Later," she sighed, enjoying this perfect moment too much to let him stop now. "I kind of want to just feel tonight. No thinking."

"You? Stop thinking? I didn't know that was an option," Clark teased between kisses.

"Only with you," she deepened the kiss for a moment before backing away and hopping off the countertop. "Now come on Smallville, I've always wanted to know what it was like to make love in a hay stack and you're just the person to give me that experience. You interested?"

Clark simply smiled.

It was good to be in love with Lois Lane.


	22. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23: The Meaning of Sacrifice**

Lois had had time to go home, shower, change and then come back to the farm before Chloe made it out to the Kent's as she had promised the evening before. Indeed, despite her promises to have her way with Clark once more before he had to get up to do his chores, they had ended up sleeping through the evening and at 6 AM, had gotten up and Lois had gone home to shower.

She sighed into her cup of coffee that Martha Kent had kindly handed to her before heading into Smallville to the Talon as she had come into the farmhouse a half an hour ago, and shifted in her chair.

"How's our patient today?" Chloe asked as she entered the kitchen, going directly to the coffeepot and filling a mug before sitting down next to Lois.

"He's doing his chores," Lois said as she met her cousin's eyes with her own.

Chloe looked shocked, "He is?"

Lois nodded, taking a gulp of her coffee, "Last night when he woke up, he was as good as new. It's as if he never got shot…"

"OH!" Chloe cried, reaching into her bag for the item that had made her late this morning. "Speaking of that, I went back to the mansion this morning, and I retrieved this." She handed Lois the bullet that she had taken out of Clark the previous evening.

"Hmm," Lois furrowed her brow as she studied the green bullet in more detail. Last night really hadn't been conducive for this kind of examination. At the time, she had been more concerned about getting it away from Clark rather than determining the scientific make-up of the bullet in question, "You wouldn't think a little piece of rock would be enough to make Clark so sick that he almost died..."

"Would you mind putting that away?" Clark called from the doorway to the kitchen, hanging back in order to avoid the effects of the Kryptonite.

"Oh, sorry Smallville," Lois stood up, moving to the living room and retrieving the lead box that Mrs. Kent had kept along with the Kryptonite inside it for emergencies. She placed the bullet next to the rock, closing it firmly and hiding it again before moving back into the kitchen.

"Thanks," Clark breathed a sigh of relief, walking into the kitchen and washing his dirty hands in the kitchen sink. "Was that what I thought it was?

"If you mean was that the bullet that almost killed you last night," Chloe piped up, "Then yes. I went back to the mansion this morning to get it. The last thing we need is Lex finding odd looking bullets in his garden."

"Are you sure it wasn't him who did it?" Lois crossed her arms, leaning forward and resting them on the table.

"I'm sure it wasn't," Clark said negatively. "Lex wouldn't do something like that to me. We're not really friends anymore, but we're not enemies."

"But what if it wasn't meant for you?" Lois pointed out, deciding to take the logical high-road on this topic. She agreed with Clark that perhaps his friendship with Lex wasn't completely over (although she certainly thought it was headed towards disappearance if her cousin's theory on Lionel Luthor's death was in any way correct), "What if the bullets were meant for Chloe?"

"Whoa there Cuz," Chloe said in a shocked voice. "Why would Lex try to kill me? And why would he use meteor rock bullets? I've made some accusations, yes, but that doesn't mean…."

"Unless you were getting too close to the truth," Lois answered before her cousin could finish in a soft voice, glancing at Clark who was currently standing at the kitchen island pouring himself a cup of coffee. Lois didn't believe in coincidences. Things happened for a reason and, while she believed that a person made their own fate in this world, she also believed that once a course of action was set in motion by a person, their level of control, in turn, was passed to another person who might or might not do something to continue that original decision. "And as far as we know, he only had one bullet made of the meteor rocks. Clark was able to block the rest of them without any problems."

Ultimately, Lois feared for her cousin now because she had the distinct feeling that Lex was not going to let Chloe keep control over her own situation in this case. From the look on Clark's face, he was having the same fears although she knew that his were decidedly simpler than her own. He still thought Lex was salvageable as a good person whereas she was more inclined to believe Chloe's theory-that he had turned a corner that he could come back from.

"OK," Chloe said warily, taking in the loaded look that was currently being passed between her cousin and Clark. "Your non-verbals are starting to worry me. What's going on?"

Clark sighed, moving with his coffee to sit at the table with Lois and Chloe, "Nothing Chloe, we're just worried about you. Despite what I may think about Lex's potential capabilities, I could be wrong and he may have tried to kill you last night. "

Chloe shot him an incredulous look, "Oh come on Clark! I know there's more to it than that. Something's up and, while Lex may be a part of it, I think the real reason that you and Lois have been so 'concerned' is because of a certain tattoo that appeared on my body three months ago."

Clark sighed deeply, "So we're into that, are we?"

"Hopefully anyway," Chloe shot him a half smile, "I'm getting sick of being lied to. It would nice if someone told me the truth for once."

Lois stood up from the table, "Are you sure? It's more than a little scary, Chlo."

Chloe looked her cousin in the eye challengingly, "I'm sure. Just don't lie to me anymore."

"We never lied to you Chloe," Clark sighed, "Just…."

"…Left out parts," Lois finished for him as she left the room to gather the books that Clark had left in the living room that explained some of the history behind his journey to Earth, his soul mate and of course, Kryptonian symbols that mean 'sacrifice.'

"Exactly," Clark sighed, running a hand through his hair, "Basically Chloe, the tattoo on your ankle means 'sacrifice' in Kryptonian but it's not as simple as that…."

"So I'm going to die then?" Chloe asked, looking at Clark directly to try to gauge the truthfulness of his words. Indeed, it wasn't as if she didn't trust Clark, it was just that he had spun so many half truths when it came to what her tattoo meant and the ramifications of its appearance in the first place that she didn't know what to believe anymore.

"No," Lois broke in, entering the room with a large stack of books and placing them noisily on the table. "You're not going to die. At least we don't think so…." She handed Chloe one of the book, the one on the legend of Naman and Segeeth, Naman's soulmate and the sacrifice that was to be given so that Naman would triumph over Segeeth.

"You don't think so?" Chloe deadpanned, trying to keep calm.

"Well no," Clark said, "The literal meaning is 'sacrifice' but it could mean anything from rebirth to a transformation of some sort."

"So if I'm not going to die, simply be 'transformed,'" she used air brackets at this point.

"We don't exactly know," Lois shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Clark received some information from the Swann Institute about a new version of the story of Naman and Segeeth that involved a sacrifice but Lara told me…."

"Whoa," Chloe broke in, "Lara? As in Lara, Clark's biological mother Lara. That Lara?"

"Yeah," Lois said, "That's who told me about the whole soulmate thing actually, and the sacrifice."

"So what'd she say?" Chloe crossed her arms.

"There needs to be a sacrifice basically for Clark to realize his destiny, to provide that break between Naman and Segeeth, and ultimately be the catalyst for Clark's destiny," Lois said softly. "So that's why I'm so concerned that you're investigating Lex this way…"

"Yeah, but we don't know that Lex is Segeeth," Clark argued.

"Well who else could it be?" Lois glared at Clark. They had been having this argument for the past three months and he STILL didn't think that Lex was past the point of no return.

"I don't know," Clark said lamely, "Lionel?"

"Lionel's dead, Clark," Chloe broke in, "And I'm pretty sure that Lex killed him." She paused, wanting to know more about Lois's experience with Lara. "Did she tell you anything else? I mean, I know she told you about your role as Clark's soulmate but, what part do you have to play in all this if I'm the sacrifice?"

Lois sighed, looking down at her hands and trying to formulate her words for what she had to say next. Chloe didn't know this part after all, "I'm supposed to guide Clark to his destiny."

Chloe snorted back laughter, "How? And what's Clark supposed to do with his life anyways?"

"He's supposed to be the saviour of the Earth," Lois continued, "And I know. It's hard to believe."

"Hey," Clark piped up, "I help lots of people."

Lois refrained from biting out her next comment. Lara had warned her not to reveal too much too soon to Clark in case he accidentally fell off his path. And as for Chloe, well, Lara hadn't told her much about that. Chloe know knew as much as Clark and she did, which wasn't much. Now it was up to fate…

"Lois, was there something else?" Chloe bit her lip gently, inwardly stressing already about her potential role as a sacrifice for Clark's future.

"No," Lois sighed, but then re-thought her words, "Well, unless you count how Lara kind of messed with my insides a bit."

"Why would she do that?" Chloe furrowed her brow in confusion. She didn't understand.

"She wanted to make sure that the potential to create a back-up saviour was there," Lois looked Chloe straight in the eye. "Just in case something ever happened to Clark."

"So you can…"

"Yep," Lois said quietly, "Should Clark and I ever decide that we want to, he and I can have children together."

"So that's why you two didn't immediately get together after it happened," Chloe murmured, suddenly understanding why her best friend and her cousin, who had had the knowledge of exactly who their other halves were-a luxury most people didn't have- hadn't gotten together three months ago.

"We wanted to make sure that it was real," Clark cut in, taking Lois' hand under the table and squeezing lightly. "Not….fate making us do something we didn't want to just because it had other plans for the universe and needed us. It was kind of selfish but…"

"…we ARE three years ahead of schedule," Lois finished for him.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Chloe asked.

"Exactly what it sounds like," Lois sighed, "The night that Clark and I slept together for the first time triggered a chain of events that shouldn't have happened for another three years. I have no clue where we might have been when that happened, but because of our…actions, things have changed. Now we're dealing with it."

She met her cousin's eyes, suddenly remembering why Chloe was here in the first place, "But Chloe? Based upon the translation, it doesn't look like you're going to die so don't worry. Clark and I wouldn't let it happen even if it did say that..."

"And neither would I," A voice said from the doorway to the kitchen.

The trio at the table looked up, taking in who it was.

Mrs. Lana Luthor had apparently decided to grace them with her presence.


	23. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24: Tell All**

"Lana. What are you doing here?" Chloe asked in a vain attempt to fill the silence created by the new Mrs. Luthor's entrance into the farmhouse.

Lana entered the kitchen, crossing her arms uncomfortably. She didn't want to be here but she didn't have a choice. Lex's actions- the shooting she had watched from her window the evening before in particular, had prompted her to make this dramatic decision. Something had to be done about her husband or someone-probably Chloe, Clark, or both- was going to be killed, "I wanted to know how Clark was doing."

The man in question laughed nervously, knowing that Lana shouldn't have known that anything had been wrong with him in the first place. According to Lois, Chloe, she and his parents had taken him-still unconscious-around the mansion and left in the truck soon after Chloe had brought his parents out into the garden. The only thing that Lex or Lana might have wondered about would have been their disappearance.

"How I'm doing?" he asked, trying his best to keep his cool, at the same time trying to quell the worry from his former girlfriends face. "Was there something wrong with me?"

Lana nodded her head in resignation. If she were Clark, she would be playing the dumb card too. As it was, she didn't want to force him into a position to have to drop the act but the real need to enact some change in her situation as the new Mrs. Luthor demanded it of her. If she was going to take down Lex piece by piece, she was going to need help. The fact of the matter was that she didn't have time for this though. A more direct approach to the conversation she needed to have with them was required….

She sighed stepping further into the kitchen, closer to the table, "You know Clark, I was angry when I found out about your….secret. For a moment anyways. I mean, you had years to tell me and you didn't. But after I started dating Lex I guess I just….stopped caring about it, you know? I had moved on, so had you. And I just want you to know for the record that I understand why you didn't tell me." She smiled at him, the expression fading on her face at the terrified look on his. This wasn't going to be easy, but it needed to be done…

"I'm sad that you couldn't, but I understand. I thought we were close enough that you could tell me but, hindsight being twenty-twenty, I guess it's a good thing you didn't, isn't it? I mean, Lex has this huge file on you and you don't know what he's going to do with it. If I were you, I wouldn't be telling anyone either, least of all me. I am Lex's wife now."

"Lana, I don't know what you're talking about," Clark tried again, praying that something would happen to get him out of this situation. He could deny his secret all he wanted but if Lana didn't stop her true confessions soon, he might be forced to do something he didn't want to do in order to get her to stop.

Lana rolled her eyes, resigning herself to what she had to do in order to get Clark in a position to first admit to his powers and then to help her, before reaching into her pocket for the lead box that she had stolen from Lex's office that morning. Direct approach it was then…

Lois watched in confusion as Lana opened the box. What was in there that was so important? Her question was answered as the hand that still held onto Clark's under the table gripped her tightly and a groan of immediate and excruciating pain left him.

Kryptonite.

Chloe stood up from the table, having watched her best friend be put in a position of pain too much for comfort in the last 24 hours, and grabbed the box out of Lana's hand. Knowing what it was but curious anyways, she looked quickly at the boxes contents before slamming it shut angrily, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Proving my point," Lana retorted, helping herself to a chair at the table and sitting down, not concerned in the least that Chloe now had all of the green meteor rock bullets that she had been able to retrieve from Lex's office that morning. After the scene she had watched play out from her bedroom window the night before, she didn't think that Lex deserved them.

"And what point would that be?" Lois snapped, leaning over her boyfriend in concern as he tried to get his bearings back. The pain from the Kryptonite was fading slower than it usually did, much as it had the last time he was shot. "Clark, are you alright?"

He nodded, breathing deeply as the pain ebbed away from his body, his blood stopping its bubbling action inside his veins as soon as the box of meteor rock was closed. He squeezed Lois' hand in reassurance. He would be fine.

"That Clark is-shall we say-not like the rest of us," Lana crossed her arms, ignoring the interactions going on between her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend in favour of getting on with the reason she was here in the first place. Indeed, she _really _didn't have much time. Lex was in a meeting and although she knew that he approved of her visiting her friends (the better to find out more information about Clark and his 'powers'), she knew that if she stayed too long, it would look suspicious and this was not good for either herself, the baby, or her friends. "And Lex knows about it. He's the one who arranged to have you shot at last night. Of course Chloe didn't help. I mean he wouldn't have tried anything if she hadn't been getting too close to the truth. And as for Clark, well," she gained eye contact with her ex-boyfriend. "You might want to think about keeping a low profile for the next little while. From what I overheard in his study this morning, you might be in trouble."

The room fell silent as everyone but the new Mrs. Luthor absorbed her words.

"Lana," Lois cleared her throat, her anger abating somewhat from Clark's brief and unexpected encounter with the meteor rock that Lana had had in the little lead box. "I think you need to start from the beginning…"

"The very beginning?" she smiled bitterly, nodding her head in agreement. "Alright, but be prepared, it's not a pretty story." She sighed, running a nervous hand through her hair and trying to think of how she could get this out quickly. Lex would kill her if he knew she was doing this. Literally. Well, maybe not literally; she rather thought that he cared enough for his child to at least wait the six and a half months more that she was going to be pregnant to do that, but she really couldn't say for certain.

"We'll skip the first part, alright?" she started. "You already know about Lex and I dating. What you don't know is why I broke up with him." She turned to Chloe, looking her in the eye. "You were right Chloe. He killed his father. And I was there."

"Lana," Chloe looked shocked, leaning forward at the table. "Are you saying you've known this whole time that Lex killed his father and you didn't say something about it?"

"I couldn't, he would have…"

"He would've what?" Chloe said supportively, urging her to continue.

Lana broke eye contact and looked down at the table, "He would have done something to Clark."

Clark looked at her incredulously, "Why? For what purpose? I mean, I know we're not the best of friends but what does this have to do with Lionel Luthor's murder?"

"I'm getting to that," she sighed, turning the conversation to something that she and Clark had briefly discussed when they had been dating. "Clark, you remember telling me about the file that Lex kept on you? I thought it was crazy that he would even have bothered. He should have just been grateful you saved his life when his car went over that bridge…"

"Yeah, but he destroyed it," Clark argued. "He told me."

"He lied," she said succinctly, crossing her arms. "Clark, he's got a room in the mansion devoted to strange things that have happened either around or about you and since I've been dating him, it's only gotten larger."

"Lana, that doesn't make any sense," Chloe broke into the conversation, "How could it be getting larger…" Her eyes widened as a thought popped into her brain. It seemed that the Luthor's were not very original creatures if their methods of getting information on Clark Kent were anything to go by. "He's had you spying on Clark, hasn't he?"

Lana nodded, "The reason Lex shot his father was because Lionel thought that Lex was losing focus. He was obsessing over silly things, like his belief that Clark had unbelievable powers." She let out a laugh, "He actually thought that Clark was an alien. How crazy is that?"

"But Lex destroyed that room," Clark said weakly, in shock over some of the revelations that Lana was bringing forth. He didn't want to know how-and where-Lex had gotten his information about him. Lana, it appeared, knew about the meteor rocks and if that was all, that was a good thing. The less she knew, the less likely she was to tell anything of any real value to the man that Clark used to call friend.

"Clark, he's changed a lot since you first met him. Or maybe he hasn't, I don't know but you have to realize that he has been lying to you," Lana stated firmly. She was still amazed that Clark had managed to stay innocent to the ways that the world could work, especially after spending so much time with Lex Luthor. Somehow Clark had managed to escape without his vision of Lex tainted by his former friend's recent actions. She wished she could say the same thing about herself…

"Look, all I know is that Lionel was threatening to expose his rather eccentric leanings to the public and that information wouldn't have given him LexCorp's investor's approval for him to continue his plans to take over LuthorCorp. Lionel kept insisting that if he didn't stop his investigation into you, that he would do something that would ruin Lex." She turned to look directly at Clark, "And again, he never stopped his investigations. Only….slowed them for awhile. The night that it all happened, I had decided to go up to the mansion to talk to Lex, try to work out some of the issues that we had been having. He had been distant and I didn't know whether or not I should call it quits with him."

She paused, looking up to make sure that she hadn't lost her friends in her explanation of her current arrangement with Lex before continuing with her story, "I watched him shoot his father, and Lex, I thought, didn't know I had seen him do it but the next morning, I received a call from him to come to the mansion…."

"And you went over there!" Chloe exclaimed in wide-eyed horror.

Lana shrugged sheepishly, "I was trying to keep up appearances. If I hadn't of showed up, he would have found me anyway. That was probably the first time I was really afraid of him. Anyway, I went up there and he told me that the security cameras had shown that I was in the mansion the night before," she cleared her throat, "And that's when it all began. He wanted more information on Clark, and I was too afraid of him at first to say no."

"And now?" Clark asked in a dangerously calm voice, his jaw set.

Lana let out a harsh laugh, devoid of any humour, "Now I'm pregnant, Clark. I'm doing what I have to do because I have more than just me to worry about."

"If you're so afraid of him then, why tell us all this?" Lois spoke, breaking the silence she had been keeping in the conversation.

Lana sighed. It seemed she had been doing that a lot in the past 24 hours. "Because for all my efforts to find and keep tangible proof that he did this-and I have actually been trying to get out of this Clark, I don't like spying for him contrary to what I know you're thinking right now- I have hit a wall and I can't do this alone."

She turned to Chloe again. "Lex is getting closer to the truth about your tattoo as well. He knows you have it, and he knows what it means. I'm not sure of what significance he's giving it yet but I'm sure he'll have me getting information from you eventually. Right now, he's just trying to keep you quiet about his father."

"Then why the meteor rock bullets?" Lois asked, confused.

Lana shrugged, "He was testing his information out." She motioned to the lead box that Chloe held, looking at Clark as she did so, "Because of all the meteor freaks in Belle Reve who have spilled the beans about your 'allergy' Clark, he now knows your weakness. Last night was an attempt to kill two birds with one stone and he got what he came for."

"What do you mean?" Clark asked warily.

"Well," Lana said quietly, looking down at her watch. "You blocked all the regular bullets, Clark. So he knows that you can't be killed by ordinary means now. And the meteor rock was a test. He only put one of the special bullets in the ammunition he gave the guys he hired to fire at you and Chloe in the garden last night."

She cleared her throat, standing. Her time was almost up… "But I only found this out this morning. Those were all the bullets I could find in his office but I'm pretty sure there's more in the safe and I don't have the combination for that. I don't know if it helps but I figured it would be a sign of goodwill so that I can have your help in this."

"Where are you going?" Chloe watched as Lana stood and walked to the door.

Lana smiled mysteriously, pulling out a device from her pocket and holding it up. "Our time's up in…." she looked down at the small item's face. "20 seconds. I stole this from his office too. It masks the conversation from listening devices with background noise. Lex is keeping closer tabs on me now…"

She paused, the seriousness of the situation that she had placed herself in hitting her as the timer ticked down the final 10 seconds. After it ended, she would be acting again and she hadn't realized how much she had missed being herself until she had taken it out and realized that her sojourn into honesty was rapidly coming to an end. "Think about what I said. I just….I need some help and you guys were the only ones I felt I could…."

The beeper on the time went off and reality swooped down on her. For Lois, Chloe and Clark, it was as if a mask had dropped down on Lana's face. Her solemn expression was suddenly replaced by a fake smile and her voice suddenly became chipper. "I should get going. Chloe, are you still up for shopping next week? Lex said we could take the helicopter to Metropolis. It's so much faster….Lois, you want to come?"

"I think I'll pass," Lois shot Clark a weirded out look, feeling as if the world had switched upside down in the past half an hour.

"Well, it's your loss," Lana gave them another fake smile. "I'll see you later…."

And with that, she left, leaving the trio at the table to mull over what she had told them.


	24. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25: Trust **

"Well that was…interesting," Clark said blankly, filling the void of silence that Lana's quick departure had left in the room.

"I know," Chloe sighed, examining the box that she still held that contained the Kryptonite bullets that she had taken from Lana. "I don't know whether to help her take down Lex or keep trying to find a way to do it ourselves."

"Call me crazy, but I'm leaning towards helping her," Clark looked at Chloe, watching as she inspected the box in her hand.

Lois turned incredulous eyes to Clark and dropped his hand under the table, the same hand that she had continued to hold throughout their entire discussion with Clark's ex-girlfriend, "You ARE crazy. You two don't actually believe her, do you?"

Clark met her gaze, "I'm willing to believe anything right now if it means that Lex will leave us all alone." He drew a breath as the look in Lois' eyes clearly told him that she still thought he was crazy to believe anything out of Lana's mouth after the months of betrayal that she had participated in regards to the information on Clark that she had been feeding Lex-willingly or not.

"Look," he continued. "If we completely ignore her story and she's telling the truth, than we may as well hand Lex not only Lana, but her child. If Chloe is right-and unfortunately, I think she is, then that's a problem. I don't want to see her end up like Lex's mother. Despite the way that Lana's gone about getting help from us, I still believe that, at the very least, her child should get to have a mother around to raise it."

"He's right Lois," Chloe agreed quietly, setting the box on the table, all the while remembering the tales of exactly what Lex's mother had ended up doing to save herself, Lex and Julian from the hands of Lex's father-a man that Lex had become to both imitate in his ability to put business before anything else and in his cruelty. Truth be told, Lex had surpassed his father awhile ago and this fact alone made her agree with Clark's last statement.

Lois sighed, putting her arms on the table and looking down at her hands. She knew they were right but a part of her wanted them to be wrong. This was Lana Lang they were talking about-Lana Luthor now-and she didn't want to believe that, yet again, Lana was going to play the damsel in distress and she was going to have to stand by and watch while both Clark and Chloe bent over backwards to make sure that she was okay. She had sat back years ago and simply let this behaviour go on but now she had come to the realization that at some point, Lana was going to have to save herself.

And this seemed like a perfect place to start.

"Alright," she said quietly, standing up from the table and moving to the spot where she had placed her purse when she had entered the kitchen that morning, removing her cell phone and dialling.

Clark furrowed his brow in confusion, "What?"

"I said 'alright,'" she looked him in the eye, bringing the phone to her ear and waiting as it rang.

"Lois, what are you doing?" Clark tried again, listening as the phone continued to ring.

"Helping Lana help herself," she said succinctly, holding a hand up to silence Clark from whatever else he might have to say to her as whoever it was she was calling came on the line.

"And how exactly do you plan to do that?" Clark tried again, his voice prompting Lois to look at him, an annoyed expression gracing her face before she slipped gracefully back into the conversation she had been having in Japanese.

He turned to Chloe and watched as she simply shrugged in confusion at Lois' actions.

It looked like he was just going to have to wait to find out what she had planned.

They both watched in silence as she finished her conversation and put the phone away.

"Who were you talking to?" Clark asked, pushing his chair back and approaching Lois, watching as she furiously wrote down a phone number and what looked like directions. Lois looked up, smiling tightly. She couldn't believe she was actually doing this for Lana...

"I can't tell you that right now," she said, walking past him to get her jacket.

"Why not?" he demanded.

"Because." Lois said simply, slipping her jacket on and grabbing her purse. She sighed as she finished these simple actions, taking pity on the now deeply confused Clark and kissing him in what she hoped was a comforting way but she feared was actually placating. "We'll talk about it after it's done, okay?"

And with that, she left the house before Clark could say anything to the contrary concerning what appeared to be some incredibly impulsive actions on Lois' part.

* * *

She entered the room that Lana had been given at the mansion an hour later carrying both a bug jammer and the slip of paper from her earlier telephone conversation in her pocket.

"Lois?" Lana looked confused as she stood up from the desk where she had been writing in her journal.

"Hey Lana," she said cheerfully, pasting a sincere smile on her face. "So I was rethinking my answer to your question about going shopping in Metropolis with you and Chloe. I'd love to go."

"That's great," Lana smiled confusedly, waiting for Lois to tell her the real reason why she was here, in the mansion, essentially in the lions' den as it were. "Was there…anything else then?" Indeed, there only could BE anything else considering the fact that Lana knew Lois hated shopping, let alone shopping with other women.

"Yeah, actually there is," Lois replied.

"What can I do for you then?" Lana motioned for Lois to follow her into the sitting area of her huge bedroom that Lex had shown her to when she had moved into the mansion mere days ago.

"It's about Clark," Lois sat down on the couch next to Lana and fumbled in her pocket for the button that would jam all the bugs in the room. At least she hoped anyways, otherwise this whole exercise was going to cause more problems than it solved and she was going to have even more to explain to Clark once she got back to the farm. She sighed quietly as she found it, finally, and activated it with her finger.

Lana watched as Lois breathed a sigh of relief and the girly façade she had entered the room with faded away.

Indeed, Lois was all business now, "Okay. I lied. It's not about Clark and quite frankly I could care less if we all went shopping next week or whenever the heck you said you and Chloe were going."

"Lois, what's this all about?" Lana inquired, now more confused by Lois' assertive attitude. She watched as the woman next to her took out a small black box with a button on it from her pocket and showed it to her.

"You're not the only one with access to high tech equipment," Lois said succinctly. "It was a birthday gift from Daddy but that's beside the point."

"Than what is the point?" Lana demanded.

Lois looked her straight in the eye, "The point is that Chloe and Clark believe your story. As for me, I don't know….you could be lying, in fact, you probably are but on the off chance that you're not, I figured you could use some help." She took the slip of paper out of her pocket and handed it to Lana. "That's the number of a friend of mine. He has deep pockets and access to the same sorts of people as Lex hires to get his dirty work done quietly. I called him this afternoon, and he knows you're going to be calling. In fact, I think he's looking forward to it. Just follow the instructions and Lex won't know what you're up to"

Lana looked down at the name and number written on the piece of paper before looking up at Lois, "Why are you doing this if you don't believe me?"

Lois rolled her eyes, "Just take the number Lana, follow the directions and try to do your best to take Lex out before he does something we'll all regret he got the opportunity to do."

"I need to know why," Lana persisted. "You don't like me, I can tell. And, while I can use all the help I can get, I'm not taking pity. You do this because you want to or not at all."

Lois nodded, sighing as she did so, "Alright. You really want to know?"

"I do," Lana said softly. "Why are you doing this? And, if you don't want to be doing this, why didn't you just send Chloe or Clark over with this information?"

"Because I didn't want them to get hurt," Lois looked Lana defiantly in the eye. "And the farther both of them are from this, the better as far as I'm concerned. Lex has no use for me. Not the way he has for Chloe and Clark anyways." She sent Lana a smirk, "Don't get me wrong though, I'm not doing this just for them. If you're lying-and, as I said before, you very well could be- than I'll find out." Lois shrugged, still watching Lana out of the corner of her eye. "And, after the stunt you pulled at the farmhouse it would give me great pleasure to watch you be found out."

The two women stared at each other, trying to gauge the other's reasons for doing what they were going to be doing. Lois knew her own motives were pure but Lana's were still questionable.

They were interrupted by the quiet beeping of the device that Lois had brought into the room with her.

"Crap," Lois swore, "We've only got another 10 seconds."

"That's fine," Lana cleared her throat, watching as Lois stood up. "Thank you for this…"

"You're welcome," Lois said, drawing a deep breath. "Just remember what I said about this morning. I don't want to have to dig another bullet out of my boyfriend anytime soon."

Lana opened her mouth, intent on agreeing with Lois' sentiment but was cut off by the quick beeps of the device, signalling that their time was up.

Lois smiled, leaning forward to take the hand that Lana held the small piece of paper with the phone number in, "I'm looking forward to next week. You'll be sure to call me once you get the details laid out."

"Yeah," Lana murmured, smiling back, aware that she was once again on tape. "I'll see you soon Lois."

She watched as Clark's girlfriend walked out the door, turning as it shut quietly and picking up her cell phone. The directions had pointed out that she wouldn't need to find an un-tapped phone for this call and she hoped that they were right. The man she was calling wasn't the one she was going to be talking to first after all and that meant she would have a degree of anonymity that she otherwise wouldn't. Lex would still be suspicious, but she could always write it off as Clark having asked her to help with a surprise for Lois. After all, the man she was calling had known Lois a long time, or so the paper in her hand told her, and that meant that calling him could mean a multitude of things other than 'Lex-I'm-trying-to-destroy-your-evil-and-villainous-plot'.

She was torn out of her thoughts as a voice came on the line.

"Yes?"

Lana cleared her throat, "Hi. My name is Lana Luthor. I'm calling to…."

"Oh yes," the British voice on the other end of the line said kindly. "Ms. Lane told us you were going to be calling. Let me just put you through to him."

"Thank you," she murmured, listening as she went on hold and then...

"Hello?"

"Hello. My name is Lana Luthor. I need to speak to Bruce Wayne…"


	25. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26: Truth **

Chloe walked out of the farmhouse two hours after Lois left with a wince on her face. Indeed, she had spent the time since her cousin had gone to do whatever it was she had to do mulling over theories with Clark as to why Lana would marry Lex and then come to the farmhouse for help in bringing him down. Her first inclination had been to believe Lana but Lois had had a valid point; the new Mrs. Luthor could be deceiving them into believing her with her tried and true strategy of getting Clark to come to her rescue.

It wasn't that she blamed Clark for his actions in keeping Lana safe over the years. It was simply that Lana's methods this time around had been questionable to say the least. Showing up at the farmhouse with kryptonite as a bargaining tool didn't exactly instil trust when a person was looking for help from a guy who just happened to have a MAJOR allergy to it. Chloe hadn't expected Lana of all people to have figured out (at least partially) Clark's secret or even his weakness (although she knew for a fact that Lex had had a hand in THAT particular discovery).

She had things to do though. With this in mind, she drew a breath and approached her car, opening the door and setting her purse on the seat. A noise drew her attention and she looked up, watching as Lois drove into the driveway, came to a stop and shut off the engine.

"Where were you?" Chloe raised an eyebrow and leaned on the open door of her car.

"I went to see Lana. She shouldn't have any problems handling her little 'Lex' problem now," Lois shrugged, looking pleased with herself.

Chloe looked at her warily, "Lois, what did you do?"

Lois looked back towards the farmhouse, "You sure you don't want to save that question? I was about to go inside and explain what I've been up to to Clark. The way I left, I figure Smallville's been chomping at the bit to find out why."

"Yeah, that's about what he's been doing," Chloe stepped away from the car and crossed her arms. Chomping at the bit indeed. She had had to endure two hours of his 'chomping' while Lois had been off doing God knew what for-or to, she didn't know which-Lana. It was high time that the game she had been impatiently waiting to end since Lois had left the farmhouse did "So what'd you do?"

"I thought we were going to discuss this inside," Lois looked confused. "I mean, I don't mind telling it twice but it might be easier if I just did it with everyone who needs to know in the same room."

Chloe shook her head negatively. The trip to the farm this morning had only meant to take until 11 or so but now it was after 12 and she really had to be getting back to the city if she wanted to be prepared for her classes, "Sorry Cuz. I've used up my quota of spare time and I should be getting back to Metropolis. I've got a presentation tomorrow afternoon that I haven't even begun to prepare for."

Lois nodded understandingly, "Fair enough," she drew a breath and stepped closer, leaning over a bit to whisper in Chloe's ear. With Lex playing hardball the way he appeared to be, she had no idea who-or what-could be listening in, "I called Bruce."

"YOU WHAT!"

Lois made a face, holding her hands to her ears to stop the ringing that had started from Chloe's unexpected yell. She continued in a low voice, mindful that even the hay bales had potential ears, "I called Bruce. Figured if she needed to bring down a corrupt billionaire that she'd need another billionaire, albeit only slightly less corrupt-but in a good, moral way-to deal with him. Fight fire with fire or something," she frowned. "Why the big reaction Chloe?"

"Well, I don't know Lois," Chloe said in a hushed, but sarcastic voice, "Maybe because if Lex finds out that you're the one who set his wife up with a man who has had a vendetta against him since they were both taking over their first companies he might DO something to you. THAT might have something to do with it. And why the whispers? Clark checked earlier and the farm's clean. No bugs."

"Oh," Lois said in a normal voice, "Good to know."

They were both quiet a moment and then, "So you really called Bruce?" Chloe murmured.

"Well, he seemed like the best person to help her at the time."

"And he is," Chloe said seriously, "I just wish you would have thought this through before you did this."

"Why? Bruce was really happy that I was giving him this opportunity. He's been waiting years for this. Lana seemed pretty happy with the arrangement too. Had a bit of fear in her eyes, but I really think that was just nerves….."

Chloe rolled her eyes, "Yeah, sometimes Lana can be smart that way. She's playing a dangerous game."

Lois looked at her, confused, "Why are you so worried? Bruce'll take care of her. Trust me Chlo; Lana will get the help she needs, Bruce will get whatever it is he's looking for, and you and Clark will be safe."

"But will you?" Chloe asked sadly, "I just….I wonder if you did the right thing. If he finds out you did this, he'll come after you."

Lois shrugged, "I'm aware of that and I'm prepared for it. But I'm telling you Chloe, it won't happen. I took the bug killer that Daddy gave me for my birthday. He won't hear a thing about it."

"Okay," Chloe tilted her head and smirked, "But I'll let you tell Clark that. He's gonna be furious with you."

Lois pursed her lips, "Well he's just going to be a big boy about this and realize that he doesn't own me. I had to do this and, on the off chance that I fall into harm's way….well, it's nothing I can't deal with and Clark knows that."

"Uh-huh. Why don't I believe that?" Chloe shook her head, smiling now. She was REALLY glad she was going to be on her way to Metropolis by the time Lois went in the house and told Clark what she had done, "I'll see you soon Lois. Don't get killed, okay?"

"Funny," her cousin narrowed her eyes and watched as Chloe walked to her car and got in before starting the engine. She turned, waving her good-bye, and faced the farmhouse, Chloe's words playing back in her head and winced. Her cousin had been right; Clark was not going to be happy about this.

* * *

"YOU DID WHAT!"

Lois rolled her eyes and put another spoonful of ice cream in her mouth. From the corner of her eye, she caught the shocked looks on both Martha and Jonathon Kent's faces looking into the kitchen from their spot on the living room couch, eavesdropping as they had been to Clark and Lois' conversation.

From the looks on their faces, they apparently thought she had acted too hastily too.

"Look," she sighed, swallowing the mouthful she had, "It's not a big deal. Bruce was happy to do it and, as I told Chloe, Lana seemed happy to accept the assistance. No need to thank me…"

"Oh, there's no need for that," Clark ran a hand through his hair and stood up, moving away from the table and walking towards the hall closet to retrieve his jacket.

"Where are you going?" Lois furrowed her brow in confusion, setting her still half-full bowl of ice cream down on the table and getting up, meeting him at the closet and crossing her arms.

He met her eyes with a stony gaze, "To fix this."

"Fix what?"

"THIS!" he motioned with his hands to her, his coat half-on.

She took the corner of the coat and began to take it off him, "Clark, I don't need to be fixed and neither does this situation. Now just calm down and…."

"And what?" he fought her, trying to take the coat back from his girlfriend and failing miserably as she slipped the last of it from his arm, walked past him, and hung it back up.

"I don't know. Something. Lois, you put yourself in a bad situation today and you shouldn't have," he looked up at the ceiling and tried to rein in his temper. Lois always did things like this…"This isn't worth it and Lana can fend for herself. You could get hurt with this plan but what really gets me is that you knew that when you went over there!"

Lois crossed her arms, purposely keeping her words sarcastic for both their sakes. She didn't know that she wouldn't say something she'd regret but if she said it in a somewhat joking way she had a far better chance at keeping their relationship right where it was and not backtrack into meaningless sex land again, "Yeah Clark, I knew. But I thought this is what you wanted. Lana will get the help she needs, you'll be safe because you won't have to put yourself in the position to let Lex put another of his special bullets in you, and neither will Chloe. It's a win-win situation."

"Not for you," Clark murmured, falling silent as soon as the words left his lips.

Lois nodded, looking him in the eye, very much aware that his parents were watching them fight and not caring, "Is this what this is about? Are you afraid?"

"Lois, I love you. Of course I'm afraid. If Lex finds out you did this…."

She brought up a finger and placed it to his lips, "But he won't. Daddy gave me a bug killer for my birthday and Lex didn't hear a thing, I swear. He'll just think I was there arranging that shopping trip that Lana was talking about."

Clark breathed a sigh of frustration, shaking his head, "You're missing the point."

"What point?" Lois threw up her hands, "That you're afraid for me? You don't need to be. Bruce will get the job done before Lex has the chance to even suspect it was me who gave Lana his phone number. I'll be fine."

"But what if you're not?" he looked at her and her heart nearly broke at the fear she saw in his eyes.

"I will be, Clark," she murmured, putting a hand to his cheek and giving him a small, reassuring smile.

"But how do you know that?"

Lois breathed out through her nose and dropped her hand, "I just do, okay? Don't ask me how because I can't tell you."

"Can't or won't?"

"Won't," she looked down at her hands. "It's not important. All you need to know is that it's taken care of. I'll be fine."

He shook his head and began to open the door, "That's not a good enough answer Lois."

"Well what do you want me to tell you!" she demanded, pushing the door shut.

"The truth would be nice."

She paused, lips curling into grimace and she let out a short bark of humourless laughter, "Do you even know how much you sound like Lana right now?" She uncrossed her arms and sighed, "But fine. You want the truth, you'll get the truth. But you need to understand something first. Call it love, call it selfishness, call it whatever you want but I did this for us…and for Chloe, and at the end of the day, I'll never regret that I called Bruce to take care of this."

She stepped closer to him and caught his gaze, "The reason I wasn't prepared to let either you or Chloe deal with this was because of the risks that it posed to you. You both could have ended up dead."

"And somehow that's not an option for you?" Clark blurted out, angry and frustrated.

Lois fell silent as she prepared to tell him the final part of what Lara had done to her when she had been in the Fortress of Solitude. This was the toughest part of it all and it had taken her months to come to terms with it because of the ramifications it held for her life, and for the relationships she had grown to love and cherish.

She cleared her throat and breathed deep, "No. It's not an option."

Clark looked at her as if she was crazy, "Lois, you're just as destructible as the rest of us, even me. Do you mean to tell me that you're immortal now? That, even if Lex got a chance, he couldn't kill you?"

"Sort of," Lois shook her head, not knowing how to describe what had been done to her, "I'm saying that I'll live as long as you live."

"Well yeah," he said hesitantly, not knowing what she was trying to tell him. "There's the whole 'fate' thing we've got going for us."

"No!" Lois stepped back and felt the last bit of hesitancy fall away. He had to know…. "I mean, that I'm going to live as long as you do. Lara…..tied my life to yours. Fate remember? Destiny? We're meant to be together Clark and I've got to tell you, whatever cosmic force that set this up wasn't joking around! Your life is tied to our solar system's sun; you have powers because of it, you heal more quickly too, and most importantly, you age at a slower rate as long as it exists. Do you understand what I'm saying now? I don't go back to aging normally, or even healing normally unless you do. I don't die……"

"….unless I do," Clark blanched, understanding now.

"And now you see why I had to be the one to do this," Lois finished. "Because if we're going to stand a chance in hell of seeing you save all those people like Lara said you would, or…..welcome our daughter into the world whenever we decide to have her, than you need to be alive for that. For both of us."


	26. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27: Subterfuge Part 1**

Lana Lang twisted her hands together nervously as she stared down at the memory stick of information she had received by courier today. Indeed, Bruce had had his 'people' (Lana didn't want to ask who these people included because she knew she wouldn't like the answer) looking into Lex Luthor for the past month and this morning, he had sent what he had received over to her. She had successfully made it to the point that tangible evidence was now in her hands to support Chloe's idea that Lex killed his father and, as far as she knew, Lex didn't suspect a thing.

Beyond getting help of any kind though, she hadn't really thought towards the future and now, information in hand, she had no idea what to do with it.

She sat down on the couch and thought hard. It was all well and good to have concrete evidence that Lex was doing something illegal but she seriously didn't have anywhere to take it. Originally, she had thought to take this to Chloe because she knew for a fact that Chloe was working on a story about Lex. She also knew that any information that she would receive on him would be information that she could use to pin Lionel's murder on Lex, putting Lex behind bars and setting Lana and her baby free from his manipulative grasp.

Only one thing weighed heavily enough on her consciience to make calling Chloe with this information near impossible: Lois. She had made Lois a promise a month ago that, by taking the phone number, she would leave Chloe and Clark out of the mess that was her life. The bottom line was that she couldn't bring Chloe into her mess. After all, Lois had put herself in danger by providing her with Bruce's contact numbers and she had done it to protect Clark and Chloe. To bring Chloe into the game at this point would be wrong….

Her thoughts were interrupted as her cell phone rang, "Hello?"

"Hey Lana," Chloe's voice said into her ear. Lana inwardly cursed, clutching the disc closer to her. Was her best friend reading her mind now? Indeed, in the past week, Chloe had been uncharacteristically chummy.

"Chloe," Lana tried her best to keep her voice still.

On the other end of the phone, Chloe furrowed her brow in confusion. "Okay. What's wrong? Besides the usual 'I-married-Lex-Luthor' issues? Have I mentioned how bad of an idea that was?"

"I'm fine Chloe. Your call just startled me. And yes, you're opinion on Lex has been received loud and clear," Lana cut her off, making a quick decision and resigning herself to the fact that, when Lois got her hands on her, she was going to kill her…. "Are you at the Planet right now?"

Chloe raised an eyebrow into the phone, "Yeah. Why?"

"No reason," Lana looked around the room suspiciously before standing and moving to walk out onto the terrace. Even Lex couldn't 'bug' nature after all.

She wouldn't put it past him to use a satellite to pick up her conversation though.

She paused at the door before moving out, scowling at her own paranoia. Lex had no idea of what she was doing, she was sure of it...

"Is he listening to this right now?" Chloe, sensing the reason why Lana wasn't being as forthcoming as she normally was, asked softly.

Lana bit her lip, her worry coming back full force, "I'm not sure. I'm alone right now but that doesn't mean anything. He's always listening."

"I'll ask the questions, okay? Keep it vague. You got your cell phone checked for bugs so it shouldn't matter what I have to say to you." Chloe leaned forward at her desk and spoke into the phone gently. "Is this about the thing that Lois told me about?"

Lana nodded, "Yeah."

"And he, um…..he got back to you?"

"Yeah."

"And did he send you anything of interest? Information? Blackmail?"

"The first," Lana gulped, worrying her lip.

Chloe sighed, knowing now what the problem was, "And I'm guessing you have no idea what to do with it."

"Well, I'm in a little over my head here Chloe. I thought I could do something about it but now……I mean, it's been less than a month but I have no clue what I'm doing," Lana sat down in one of the patio chairs. Despite the way in which she had told Clark, Lois and Chloe about her plans, Chloe had been her staunchest fan at this point, offering help at every turn -although Lana knew that this had something to do the story she was writing.

"Send it to me," Chloe murmured after a moments hesitation. Lois was going to kill her if she found out she was doing this... "I'll figure it out."

"Chloe, I can't," Lana insisted, looking around the yard again. No one was there.

Chloe leaned forward at her desk and sighed, "Why not?"

"Because you could get hurt," she said quietly, a concerned edge to her voice.

Chloe rolled her eyes. She had to find a way to make the people in her life stop thinking that she was such a weakling. She could take care of herself and she really didn't need all of these extra people looking out for her. "Lana. He's not going to do anything to me. He doesn't even know what you're up to and he won't know until I write the story that not only puts him in jail, but gets me a job upstairs."

"Chloe, I'm serious!" Lana insisted, not liking her friend's attitude in the least. Chloe had no idea who she was dealing with and Lana unfortunately did. Lex was cruel now, capable of things she had never thought him capable of before. She had watched him murder his father in cold blood and feel no remorse for it. Not once had she seen him shed a tear over the matter. She drew a breath and tried to calm herself. Despite how she felt about Lex, she loved the baby they had made together and stress wasn't good for it. "Look, you CAN give me the number of one of those people you work with and I'll send it to them when I feel there's enough to do anything really damaging; that is, if I choose to handle this information that way. I might just….."

"Put it into a safety deposit box and lock away the key?" Chloe said exasperated but understanding of where Lana was coming from. She had a child to look out for now and Chloe knew that if she were Lana, she would want to take all the time she needed to make sure that, once locked away, that Lex wasn't getting out.

"That was one of the options I considered," Lana murmured, looking over her shoulder once more. Her eyes widened as she spotted Lex through the veranda doors. "Look Chloe, I've got to go. Lex is home."

"Alright, I'll talk to you soon," Chloe murmured into the phone, "And Lana?"

"Yeah?" she averted her eyes, hoping that he wouldn't come out here to see her.

Chloe continued talking, "Just consider what I said. It's always better to have back-up copies and if you wanted, I could do some more research into what Bruce found for you."

"Yeah, I know," Lana cleared her throat, casting Lex a hesitant smile through the glass and watched as he stepped out of the house towards her. "I'll think about it. Thanks Chloe, I'll talk to you soon."

And with that, she ended the call, flipping her cell phone shut and slipping it into her pocket with the memory stick.

"Who was that?" Lex asked as he stepped out onto the terrace, a file in his hands. He dropped a kiss onto her cheek and Lana stiffened, taking a breath and waiting for him to back away from her. Since they had gotten married, she hadn't allowed him to touch her in anything other than platonic ways and then, only in front of the press. In the mansion, she had her own room and Lex had his and no amount of begging (which wouldn't happen, Lana knew; he was a Luthor after all) would allow her to let him back into her bed.

And no amount of pleading from her body to allow him back into her bed was going to convince her otherwise either.

She waited for him to back away from her before standing, an arm unconsciously wrapping around her middle protectively, "Chloe. She um, she wanted to know when I was going to be in Metropolis again."

Lex smiled in that way that told her that he knew she was lying, and sat down in the second chair. He placed the file onto the table and opened it up, shrugging, "How IS Chloe these days? Haven't seen her around lately…."

"She's alright," Lana said quietly, not turning to look at him.

From behind her, Lex smirked, his eyes trained on her back and his hand on the edge of the file. "What are your plans for this afternoon?"

Lana was careful with her next words. Lex knew something she didn't and, if her instincts were right, she would do well to get rid of the memory stick in her pocket. There was no way she was going to get it to Chloe but she knew if she left it in her room someone would 'find' it and she'd never see it again and if it was on her body….well, that was all the more incriminating. The fact of the matter was that, if she wanted to continue to give information to Bruce, who in turn took what she told him and turned it into more information about Lex, than she might have to turn to a more discreet way of doing it.

She thought hard, wracking her brain for someone she could give this to to give to Chloe. Suddenly, she had it. She turned to the table, keeping the nervous smile on her face to avoid Lex catching on. "I thought I'd go into the Talon for a bit for some tea and some of Mrs. Kent's apple pie. I've been lying around the mansion for days now and I would love to be able to stretch my legs."

He looked at her speculatively. She was very good at bluffing; he knew this because he had taught her. It was for this reason that he knew that this wasn't all that she was going to be doing at the Talon. "You want some company, or are you alright to go by yourself?"

Lana licked her lips and sighed, "I'm alright, Lex. It's just the Talon. I'll probably end up having a good long chat with Martha Kent, have my pie and come home. I'll be back before you know it."

Lex shrugged, "Well have a good time then. Send Martha my regards."

Lana nodded, turning towards the door, "I'll……um, I'll bring you back some pie then?"

Lex raised an eyebrow and tried not to smile. For all that she said she hated him, he could tell that she still harboured some feelings for him and those same feelings triggered the guilt that he could see on her face every time he watched her try to trap him into evidence that she could use against him. It was this same guilt that was apparently getting him pie today.

And he loved Martha Kent's apple pie.

"If you'd like," he said non-chalantly, turning his attention purposely to the file in front of him.

Lana looked back at him and frowned, watching as he quickly became engrossed in the file of what it was he was looking at. "I'll see you later."

And with that, she left, the odd feeling she had been having for days now creeping up on her unsuspectingly. She had no idea how she knew, but somehow, she could tell that Lex knew exactly what she was trying to do. Lana hurried out of the mansion, grabbing her car keys and her purse and practically sprinting out to her car.

She had to get the information to Lois as soon as possible.


	27. Chapter 28

**Chapter 28: Subterfuge Part 2**

Lois looked up from the cappuccino she was making to see Lana entering the Talon.

She furrowed her brow as the woman in question walked up to the counter and sat down on one of the bar stools, an anxious look on her face, "Lana? Is everything alright?"

"No," Lana took a breath, shaking her head, "Everything is not alright."

Lois sprinkled some cinnamon on top of the cappuccino and looked over to the waitress across the bar, "Beth? Can you get this to table 6 for me? I think I'm going to take my break now."

At the other waitress' nod, she started around the counter and grabbed Lana's arm, "Come on. We can't talk about this here."

"Fine," Lana agreed, letting Lois drag her up the stairs to her apartment.

"Alright then," Lois murmured once they had entered the apartment, shut the door and settled themselves on her couch. "What happened?"

"Nothing," Lana leaned forward and rested her head in her hands wearily, "And everything."

She looked up, "Lois, I think he knows."

"Knows?" Lois raised an eyebrow. "I turned on the bug killer, remember? There's no way he knows."

"Lois, call it intuition, paranoia….whatever but….he knows."

"Okay," Lois played along for the moment; despite trusting Lana's instincts on Lex (or at least partially trusting them) she wasn't certain that paranoia wasn't what she wanted to call how the new Mrs. Luthor 'knew' that her husband knew that she had been collecting information to put him behind bars for the rest of his life. "So say that he does know. What makes today so important that you had to come looking for me? I thought you and Bruce were…."

"But he's why I came to you," Lana interrupted, standing up and beginning to pace. "Lois, he sent me something today that I think you should have. It'll be safer this way."

She raised an eyebrow, "With me? You think that whatever you have on Lex is going to be safer with me?"

Lana simply nodded, her hand unconsciously falling to rest on the bump of her belly.

Lois drew a breath, understanding. Lana had come to her out of fear, not rational thought, "Well, what'd he send you?"

Lana stopped her pacing long enough to retrieve the memory stick she had brought with her from her purse, "That."

Lois looked back at her and raised an eyebrow, "Bruce sent you a memory stick? Anything interesting on it?"

Lana shook her head, sitting down abruptly, "I'm not sure yet. I…" she paused, thinking of her abrupt departure from the mansion, "…didn't have time to check."

Lois looked confused for a moment and then her eyes started to widen as she realized exactly what the other woman had done, "Lana, please don't tell me that you left the mansion with this when you suspected that Lex knew about this little plan of yours."

The other girl simply winced, and nodded.

Lois breathed out a sigh of worry. If Lex had been on to Lana, then he would surely have been suspicious when his wife had-Lois imagined-practically flown out the door with the contents of the package that had been delivered to the house. He would have sent someone after her and that would, in turn, lead her right to Lois. There was only one alternative if what Lois suspected had happened had, in fact, occurred.

She had to get the memory stick to someone who could do something with it immediately.

"Alright. First we find out what's on this and then we panic," Lois shook off her fear and stood up, reaching a hand out to take the stick from Lana.

Lana handed it to Lois and watched as she deftly hooked it up to her computer in the corner, still on from when she had checked her email that morning, and opened the files that Bruce had sent.

It wasn't until she had opened the third file that she found what she was looking for, "Lana, I think I found something."

Lana leaned over Lois' shoulder, "What?"

She pointed out a column on the record sheet she was reading, "These are old storage records for Lionel's body, or at least something that fits the description. That in itself isn't enough to do the trick but this next document," she clicked the window away and enlarged one of the others she had opened, "shows the bank account in Switzerland that Lex used to pay the guys he hired to dump whatever it was in storage in the river."

Lana looked shocked, "How did Bruce get this?"

Lois raised an eyebrow and smirked, looking over some of the other equally incriminating files on the stick, "You don't want to know."

"No, I probably don't," she shook her head, sinking down into a chair next to Lois' at the desk. "What am I supposed to do with this, Lois? This is huge."

Reality began to sink in as the enormity of the files in front of her did the same and Lois, who had been thinking through their options while Lana processed what she was seeing, spoke urgently now, knowing that it would be only a matter of time before Lex caught on and shut their information gathering down.

"Well, you give it to me and then I take this directly to the Metropolis P.D.," she clicked the buttons necessary to save the files to her own computer before removing Bruce's memory stick and copying and pasting the files to her own. That task accomplished, she gently placed it under a pile of papers at the back of the drawer.

The best way to hide something after all, she had found over the years, was to do it in plain sight.

She slipped the memory stick that Bruce had sent Lana over her neck and stood up, "I'm going downstairs to tell Martha why I'm leaving early and then I'm going to go to Metropolis. You, however, are going home. Try to keep him busy, or at least gauge if your suspicions are true and he knows."

"Fine," Lana looked confused, "Lois? You're going straight to the police, right?"

"That was the plan," Lois nodded, walking to her closet and grabbing a jacket before picking up her purse and keys. "And Lana?"

"Yeah Lois?" the younger woman stood up and looked at her.

Lois paused, wondering how to phrase this delicately, "If you don't hear from me in the next 8 hours, I want you to tell Clark what's happening, alright?"

Lana nodded, gulping down guilt and fear for Lois, "Sure."

Thanks," Lois murmured, "I'll talk to you later."

And with that, she left the apartment.


	28. Chapter 29

**Chapter 29: Not So Idle Threats**

Chloe sighed and reached a hand up to rub away the ache in her neck caused by too much time spent in front of her computer. She was almost done her story for tomorrow morning but it just needed a few little tweaks…

She jumped a little as her cell phone rang and, rolling her eyes at how jumpy she was tonight, she flipped it open and hit the talk button, "Hello?"

"Chloe, thank God. Where are you right now?"

Chloe raised an eyebrow and leaned back in her chair, "I'm at the Planet. Why?"

"Good. Just….stay there, alright? I should have done this from my apartment but I was in a rush and…"

"Lois, calm down. Now what's wrong?"

"Nothing. Not yet anyways. Just promise me that you won't be going anywhere for the next while, okay?"

She shook her head, "Don't worry. I'll be here. Lois, what's this all about? Is this about Lana and…"

On the other end of the line, she heard her cousin exhale heavily, "Yeah Chloe. Kind of, anyway. Let's just say that the endgame has started. Lex knows."

Chloe's eyes widened, "He knows?"

"She was pretty sure."

"But you don't know for sure."

"No. But she passed off the information Bruce sent her to me for safe keeping anyways. I'm still on the highway so I can't tell if someone's following me or not but…I have the strangest feeling that she's right."

Chloe cradled the phone between her shoulder and her cheek and leaned forward, her hands reaching for her keyboard, "Does Clark know about this?"

"No. And you can't tell him. Not yet anyways."

"Why not, Lois? If Lex does know, you're going to need all the help you can get. And let's be completely honest; you're safekeeping the information but who's safekeeping you?"

She could practically hear Lois glowering at her through the phone line, "Gee thanks, Chloe. And no, I don't need back-up. I'll be fine. I'm going to come to the Planet first, upload the information to your computer so I have another copy and then I'm going to the cops with it."

"But what if Lex finds you first? What if…."

"What if what, Chloe? He has kryptonite bullets, remember? I'm not putting Clark in that kind of a situation if I can help it."

She breathed out, resigned to the situation, and stopped typing the email she had been in the process of sending Clark. Lois was right, "If you're sure then."

"I'm sure. Very sure. I'll see you in fifteen minutes."

"Bye Lois," Chloe murmured, turning off her phone. With a sigh, she looked at the quick email in front of her and absentmindedly tapped her desk. Should she or shouldn't she send it?

So engrossed in her inner debate, Chloe didn't notice the door of the office opening…..

* * *

"Chloe?" Lois called out, heels clicking loudly as she practically ran into the basement. Traffic had been horrible and she was late, "Chloe, where are you?"

She paused, looking around and trying to ignore the eerie silence that was currently echoing around her. It had only been twenty-five minutes since she had spoken to her so where…

Lois froze, her eyes widening as they fell on Chloe's desk, specifically the mess that now covered Chloe's desk. She walked over slowly, afraid at what she might find, and let out a small moan of despair as she noticed the large drops of blood that were still drying on top of the piles of paper and old articles.

"Took you long enough, Lois."

She spun around and narrowed her eyes as she saw who it was behind her, "Where did you take her, you bastard?"

"First of all," Lex put his hands in the pockets of his pants and walked leisurely in he direction. "My parents were married when they had me so technically the bastard comment is kind of out of line. Second of all, where I took her shouldn't worry you right now."

He stopped in front of Lois, a smirk twisting the corner of his mouth, "It's what I'm going to do with her if you don't give me the data that Lana gave you that should be your chief concern."

Lois raised her chin defiantly, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Lex let out a snort, "Right. And I want world peace. Seriously, Lois, just do what I want and no one has to get hurt," he paused, thinking back to Chloe and the broken nose the men who had taken her away had caused, "well, not much anyway."

"Do I look stupid or something?" she crossed her arms and tried to ignore the memory stick burning a hole in her pocket, "Even if I did have what you want-which I don't by the way-I wouldn't give it to you. For all I know, Chloe got away or…or you didn't really take her at all."

Lex nodded, having known that she would demand proof. He reached into his bag and pulled out a digital camera. He passed it to her, "Maybe this will change your mind."

Lois felt all the blood drain out of her face as she went through the pictures. Lex had documented the whole abduction, it seemed, even the part where they loaded Chloe into the van and took her away.

"If you keep going you'll find there's a video, just in case you still don't believe me," he drawled, stepping closer to look over her shoulder.

"Enough," she handed the camera back and closed her eyes tightly, trying to think of any other way to get out of this situation. There were none, at least nothing that she could come up with right now. She looked over her shoulder at him, looking him straight in the eye, "If I give this to you, you'll let her go, right?"

He tilted his head to one side, "Um-hm. That's the deal."

Lois drew a breath. If she didn't give it to him, Chloe would die but if she DID give it to him…then he might still kill her. She reached into her pocket and touched the memory stick with one finger, contemplating her options one more time. She didn't trust Lex as far as she could throw him but there was still the chance that he would let Chloe go if she did what he was demanding of her...

Lex took the memory stick she handed him a moment later, smiling as he did so, and began to walk away, "Excellent choice. It was lovely doing business with you, Lois."

He looked over at the security detail he had brought with him and nodded towards Lois.

"Hey!" she cried as the guards arms took hold of hers and began to drag her after Lex. "You said you'd let her go! That was the deal…."

Lex looked back at Lois and shook his head, "I said I'd let Chloe go, Lois, I didn't say I'd let YOU go. I'm a man of my word but," he walked towards her, leaned forward as if to tell her a secret and, in a low voice, said, "I'd say you officially know too much."

Lois narrowed her eyes, "People know where I am, Lex. Someone will notice I'm gone and…."

He stood up straight and shook his head, "See, and I thought we were connecting here, Lois, and now you have to go and lie to me. You told Lana not to tell Clark where you were for eight hours and Chloe, the only other person who might know where you are right now, is currently on her way to being dumped out in the middle of nowhere. That, if my math is correct, means that we've got another four hours before anyone notices you're missing and by that point, you'll be dead or at the very least on your way to being dead."

Lois breathed a shaky breath out. He was right and, as the fear she had been beating off since Lex had appeared in the room came back, she tried to think of exactly what Lara had meant when she had told her that her life was tied to Clark's. She wondered, more appropriately, if she really couldn't die unless Clark did and in that case, she wondered how long it would take Lex to figure it out.

Probably in about four hours when Clark figured out what had happened and stormed into wherever it was Lex was going to hold her captive.

"Ah, there it is," he reached over and lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him, "There's the fear I was looking for. And you know what? You should be scared. This isn't going to be pleasant at all."

Lex dropped her chin and motioned with one hand for the guards holding Lois to knock her out. The last thing she saw before the blackness of unconsciousness took over her mind and body was Lex, walking away, the memory stick tight in his hand.


	29. Chapter 30

**Chapter 30: Promises**

Clark opened up his journalism textbook and began to read, intent on getting his homework done before he went to bed tonight. He ran a hand through his hair and with the other, opened his laptop and moved his hand over the touch pad.

The screen lit up as the computer came out of hibernation, and, unexpectedly, let out a small 'ping.'

He looked up from his text and breathed an impatient sigh. With a shake of his head as he noticed who the email was from, he opened it, more than slightly confused. What reason did Chloe have to email him? She had seen him yesterday and as far back as he could remember, she generally preferred to call him, rather than email him. In fact, if he recalled correctly, she only ever emailed him when she was in trouble or….

….Lois was in trouble.

Clark let out a groan as he read the words on the screen, confirming his latter suspicion. Lois was in trouble. Again.

He closed his eyes briefly and mentally tamped down on the voice suddenly in his ear, reminding him that that 'again' comment-even thought-was uncalled for. Lois could take care of herself.

It was funny how that voice in his ear sounded a lot like Lois' though.

He stood up and began to walk down the steps leading out of the loft, only pausing when he heard his cell phone start to ring. With one hand, he got it out of his pocket and pressed the talk button, "Hello?"

"Clark?"

"Chloe?" he stopped short on the steps. "Where are you? And what was with the email you sent me? What have you and Lois been doi….."

"Clark, calm down. This is not the time to do this. Lois is in trouble and I'm…." he heard her laugh lightly, no humor in her voice as she continued, "….well, I'm really in no condition to help her right now."

"Chloe, are you alright?"

"I will be. But first I need you to come get me out of the hospital. The doctor's won't let me leave until someone comes to pick me up."

"Hospital?!" Clark nearly dropped the phone. "What are you doing in the hospital, Chloe?"

"Well…."

"Chloe," he said more firmly now. "What are you doing in the hospital?"

There was silence on the other end and then…. "Lex put me here, Clark. I don't remember much about it, but apparently I was dumped in a back alley and someone found me and called an ambulance," she paused, clearing her suddenly thick throat, "I think he might have done something with whatever Lois is doing. She was on her way to the Planet with something from Lana when Lex's goons showed up and..."

"Chloe, they didn't…." Clark leaned against the rail.

"No," she assured him, "It wasn't like that. They didn't…do that. They just beat me up. My eyes are a lovely shade of purple right now in case you were wondering."

Clark felt his heart plummet and his breath caught at her flippant tone. It had to be really bad for Chloe to be acting this cheerful when the situation didn't call for it.

"Clark?" Chloe murmured, concerned now as the silence on the other end of the line grew deafening. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," he pulled himself together, "What hospital are you at?"

"I'm at Metropolis General. Room 219. Near the…."

She looked up as a gust of air disturbed her chart at the end of the bed, "…nurses station. Hi Clark."

"Chloe," he clicked the phone in his hand closed and stuck it back in his pocket. "How are y…..Oh God."

"It looks worse than it is, actually," she tried to reassure the man standing next to the bed, knowing it was futile, and put down the phone in her hand. It looked bad, she knew….really bad. Both eyes had begun to turn black and her nose-now broken thanks to Lex- was covered in bandages and tape. Thankfully, the two cracked ribs she had weren't visible, bandaged as they were underneath the sweater she had put on when she had gotten dressed.

He stepped closer and looked at her, examining the damage, "You have two black eyes, a broken nose and if I'm not mistaken, two cracked ribs. It looks as bad as it is."

She pulled her sweater closer and tried to look shocked that he had just x-rayed her without permission, "Clark Kent, did you just x-ray me?"

He nodded, clearly unrepentant, "Yeah. I did. What are you going to do about it?"

She glared at him, "Nothing, when you put it that way. And you missed the concussion."

"Sorry, I'll try to do better next time," he replied dryly. He sighed heavily and sat down in the chair next to the bed. "Chloe, are you sure you should be leaving the hospital? You look….."

"Bad, I know," she hopped off the bed, ready to go now, "That's not the point, Clark. Lois is out there and I need to do something about it, or at least help you do something about it."

He thought about this for a moment.

"Clark, please."

"No," he shook his head, decision weighed and made in his mind. "You need to rest, not come with me to find Lois. Lex already hurt you tonight and I don't want to give him another chance."

"Clark!" she protested, "It's just a broken nose and a few cracked ribs! I'm good to go!"

"What about the concussion?" he pointed out.

"Slight concussion, Clark. Just a little one."

"Whatever," he waved this comment off. "I'm still taking you home. When I find out where he's got Lois held, I'll call you."

"But…"

"No," he shook his head. "You're going home and you're going to bed."

She crossed her arms, knowing by the look in his eyes right that this particular argument was one that she wasn't going to win, "For the record, I don't like this plan."

"Doesn't matter," he began to lead her out of the hospital room.

"Lex could have kryptonite."

"Yes, he could."

"And you have no way of combating that scenario."

"Nope."

"You're going to need me there to help y…."

"No," he stopped in the middle of the hallway and turned to her. "I won't. You're going home, remember? And you're going to rest, and you're going to get well."

She pursed her lips sullenly and, noticing this, Clark put one finger underneath her chin and tilted it up, forcing her to meet his eyes with her own.

"Chloe," he said softly, almost warningly, "I need you to promise me that if I take you home, you won't follow me to find Lois."

She paused, contemplating lying to him but almost immediately throwing out that idea, "I can't do that, Clark."

He let out a frustrated sigh, "Well then I'll just have to take you to Smallville instead of your place. Mom and Dad can keep an eye on you."

She looked at him sullenly, glaring at him with resentful eyes, "You wouldn't do that."

"I would," he leaned closer to her, "But only if you make me."

"Lois would want me to help her though. Help you help her that is..."

"Lois would want you safe," Clark tried to talk her out of doing what came naturally for her. "So please Chloe. For me, for Lois, just….stay at home, watch a movie or something and rest."

He paused, looking at her and trying to gauge how many of his words had actually reached her. From the looks of it, not many. He went on, "Of course, I could always take you to Smallville if that's the way you feel about it.

"Fine then," she shook her head after a moment of thought, alarmed that that was Clark's alternative plan. That one would certainly ruin her own. She quickly changed tactics, intent on making Clark believe her when she told him that she wouldn't be going anywhere once he dropped her off at her apartment. "I'll go home. But again, I think that this is…."

"…a bad idea," he finished her sentence for her, "Yeah, you told me."

She took a breath, "You'll call me when you find her, right?"

"Yeah," he stuck his hands in his pockets and continued to walk. "I will."

"Good," Chloe followed. She should feel guilty for what she was planning to do but somehow, with Lois' life at stake, she couldn't bring herself to care.

* * *

Lois struggled to loosen the knot holding her hands together behind her back, crying out in frustration when they didn't budge.

"It's no use, Lois. You're not going anywhere," Lex called from the doorway, entering the office and sitting down across from her. He watched as she continued to struggle with the coarse rope he had watched her be tied with and, with the flick of his wrist, motioned with one hand for the guards outside the door to enter and remove the rope from Lois' wrists.

"Okay. THAT was unexpected," she murmured to herself after they had left again, shutting the door gently behind them.

"Contrary to popular belief," Lex stood up and moved to the bar to fix himself something to drink, "You'll find that a lot of my actions are unexpected, Lois. Besides all that, there are guards posted outside the door and there's no way out of this room. I'm pretty sure even you would find it difficult to escape under those circumstances." He lifted the decanter of scotch, "Drink?"

She looked at him incredulously, letting out a short laugh before she could stop herself, "I'm sorry. Did you just offer me a drink? Do you do this for all your prisoners?"

"Ah, but you're special, Lois," he poured out a glass for himself and held up and an empty one, ready to fill, "Are you sure you don't want some?"

"Thanks, but I'm good," she crossed her arms, already sick of whatever game Lex was currently playing with her. Not only was she worried for herself but she was pretty sure that the eight hour time frame she had given Lana had come and gone and therefore, Clark had probably been told where she was and what she was doing. She didn't want to think of what would happen if he showed up to rescue her now. Not that she needed rescuing…

She cleared her throat as Lex's earlier words about the guards outside the door played back in her mind. Add in the fact that she knew Lex's office-where, if she wasn't mistaken, was where she was being held-was 35 floors from the ground, and the fear she had been successfully pushing aside started to flood through her.

Maybe she did need rescuing after all.

He shrugged, oblivious to her inner thoughts, and took a sip of his drink, "Suit yourself."

Lois took the liberty the silence allowed her to casually look at the clock. It was now nine hours since she had left Smallville.

"Surprised you're still alive?" he sat the empty glass in his hand back on the bar and walked to the center of the room.

She looked at him, annoyance that he would ask her something like that clouding the fear, "Yes, actually. I thought you said I was going to be dead by now. That's what you said, wasn't it? That I would be dead before anyone had a chance to know that I was gone in the first place? I've got news for you, Lex. Your time ran out an hour ago. By now…."

"…Lana will have told Clark that you're in Metropolis. Yes, I know," he took another sip of his drink and leaned against his desk. "Well, I've got news for you, Lois. I'm not afraid of Clark, even if he IS a meteor freak."

Lois barely stifled her urge to laugh. Lex thought that Clark was a meteor freak?

"Plus," he reached over and opened a box on the top of the desk, "I know his weakness."

The urge to laugh abruptly went away as he tipped up the box so that she could see exactly what was in it.

"You were the one who shot at Chloe, Clark and I in the garden that night," she murmured, the words containing truth she had already known. Somehow the kryptonite bullets lying in neat rows in front of her-bullets she thought Lana had collected and disposed of-brought home that truth even more.

The gun lying next to the bullets certainly helped too…

"I'm afraid I can't take the credit for the actual shooting, but I DID give that order. And I'm sad to say-for Clark-that the guards outside are carrying guns filled with these same bullets," he picked the gun up out of the box.

"In fact," he picked up a few of the glowing bullets and began to load the gun, "I think it's safe to say that even if Clark DID show up, I don't think we'd have anything to worry about."

"A little confident, aren't you Lex?" Lois said with strength she really wasn't feeling right now. Though she had little chance of escaping, she needed to get rid of that gun and the bullets. Lex was right; if Clark showed up now, he wouldn't have anything to worry about because Clark would be dead. Just like that. She cleared her throat, "Who says I need anyone to save me?"

"You were the one that mentioned Clark, not me," Lex countered, taking the last drink from his glass and sitting it down on the corner of his desk, closing the box with the same hand when he was done and cocking the now loaded gun towards her. "Well. I think that's enough talking. If I recall correctly, I promised I'd do something with you, didn't I Lois?"

Her eyes widened and she shot out of the chair, standing up and backing away slowly.

"Now I know what you're thinking," he followed her, "But I assure you, green meteor rock bullets work just as quickly at killing people as the normal kind and….."

He broke off as the doors to the office suddenly opened, revealing the guards and a body slumped between them-limp and clearly in pain. A smirk crawled onto his face insidiously, "Well, well, well. Glad you could join us, Clark. I was just about to shoot your girlfriend."


	30. Chapter 31

**Chapter 31: Unexpected Endings**

Clark looked up at the building that the GPS tracker had found Lois' cell phone in, "Chloe. You were right. He DID bring her to LuthorCorp."

"I knew it!"

"Yeah, I know you did," he sighed heavily, mentally trying to put together a plan to get into the building unnoticed. Chloe hadn't just been right about Lois' probable location tonight; it was going to be extremely difficult to a) get into the building, b) retrieve Lois and c) avoid the kryptonite Lex very likely had stored for this occasion. For a moment he regretted taking Chloe home but almost immediately thought better of it as he remembered the beating she had taken tonight.

"Clark?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you alright?"

"Uh-huh," he ran a hand through his hair.

"Okay then, um, I better let you go. Just….be careful."

"I will. And Chloe?"

"Yeah?"

"I'll call you when I get her out."

"I'll look forward to it. Bye, Clark."

"Bye," he murmured and pressed the end button. With a sigh, he moved forward and closed his eyes, trying to hear Lois' distinctive heartbeat from amongst the security guards and other employees in the building. Locating it, finally, he entered LuthorCorp.

* * *

Chloe ended the call with Clark and flipped her phone shut, closing her eyes and really thinking about what she was about to do as she did so.

She tightened her grip on the steering wheel of her car and opened her eyes. What she was about to do, she mentally reassured herself, was something that Lois would want her to do, she was sure.

After all, Lois would have been the first one to tell her not to let Clark make her go home while he went off and saved the day. No, if their positions had been switched and Lois had been the one to end up in the hospital, Chloe was sure that somehow she would have been the first one storming LuthorCorp-even if she had just been discharged from the hospital.

It was with this in mind that drove Chloe to take off the parking brake of her car and pull out into traffic, driving the two blocks to LuthorCorp that she had been trailing Clark by.

She SHOULD feel guilty about fooling him but at this point she was beyond caring; Lex had kryptonite, she knew, and that meant that Clark would need her help.

Even if he didn't know it yet.

* * *

Clark looked around the corner to Lex's office, watching as the guards who had just gone in came out again. Through the closing doors, he watched Lois stretch her arms free of the ropes that Lex had had her tied up with.

He leaned back against the wall and drew a breath, running over the 'plan' he had come up with on his way through the building. So far, part one of 'the plan'-getting into the building-had been executed without issue. Part two however, involved getting past the guards and into the office where, hopefully, he would be able to incapacitate Lex before he reached for the kryptonite.

He waited a moment for the guards to settle more comfortably in their sentry duty before making his move, super-speeding around the corner….and suddenly coming to an abrupt halt as what felt like kryptonite journeyed through his body in a wave. For some reason he hadn't thought that Lex would think to arm his guards with meteor rocks.

He should have known better.

Clark moved to block a punch that came his way from the first security guard, widening his eyes in surprise as the punch actually hurt him. The second guard came closer and tried to pin him to the wall but he fought back, now more weakly than he knew was good for him, at least in this circumstance. The last thing he noticed before the first guard managed to knock him to the floor and into unconsciousness was the glowing green tinge of the guns in both of the guards hands...

He grimaced as dizziness clouded his vision and the gleam of the guns ammunition hit him full force. This was going to be more difficult than he thought.

From around the corner that Clark had just gone around, Chloe watched as her best friend fell into unconsciousness, the combination of kryptonite and violence getting the better of him.

She leaned back against the wall and sighed heavily, closing her eyes as realized that the worst case scenario had just happened and Lex, who very likely was behind the doors that the guards had just dragged Clark behind, was probably about to find out that the man in front of him wasn't exactly normal.

With one hand, Chloe opened the bag lying over her shoulder and touched one of the few supplies she had with her. Hopefully, it would enough to get her into that office….

* * *

Lois watched in horror as Clark was dragged into the room and thrown onto the floor in front of her.

"Unconscious?" Lex looked at the guards, an annoyed look on his face, "Gentlemen, what did I say about this possibility? I wanted him awake for this."

One of the guards opened his mouth to explain but Lex cut him off, "Just….go back outside and make sure that no one else gets in. Especially Chloe Sullivan. If you see her, send her in too. And for the record, I want her conscious."

He turned back to Lois, "Although if she does show up I'll be extremely surprised; the last I checked, we put her in the hospital."

The guards, though grudgingly, followed his orders, leaving Lois, Lex, and a still unconscious Clark in the office.

"You're sick," Lois murmured in disgust as she kneeled down in front of Clark to see if he wasn't just unconscious. She let out a breath of relief as she found a pulse, erratic, but there all the same. What she couldn't figure out was why he was still feeling the effects of the kryptonite. The guards had left the room, after all. But if he could feel it enough to stay unconscious….

…..then there was more kryptonite in the room and it was far closer than the box of bullets Lex had shown her earlier.

She met Lex's gaze-a challenge to her comment concerning his current level of sanity-and furrowed her brow in thought as he smirked at her, communicating without saying anything that yes, he was sick and yes, if Clark was still out of it, she could be fairly certain it was because of him and whatever store of meteor rock he had on hand in the office.

"No Lois," he knelt down next to Clark, careful to flash the piece of kryptonite he had picked up somewhere in the last few minutes. Gently, he placed it next to Clark on the floor and watched as the man moaned aloud at its proximity. "I'm not sick; just focused."

"On what?" she demanded, forgetting entirely that Lex had the upper hand in this situation as fear for Clark got the better of her. She picked up the kryptonite, "You really think this is going to make it go away? You killed your father, Lex, and whether you want it to happen or not, someone's going to find out."

She threw towards the glass walls of Lex's office, unsurprised when it didn't break what she had figured was strong glass but satisfied that the rock was now far enough away that it wouldn't hurt Clark anymore.

Lex shook his head, "It's not that simple, Lois." He stood up his hands going into his pockets, "I can't have you and Clark out there knowing what you do about me, especially not when I'm about to take over LuthorCorp. Furthermore," he looked at her, "I can't have people like you trying to dig up information about me and I know for a fact, Lois, that you won't stop until you find something. You really leave me no choice…."

"Lex, Clark didn't have anything to do with that," Lois pleaded with him, "Just….let him go. Please."

He shook his head, "Sorry Lois. You both know too much and Clark's too powerful for me to let him live."

"What about Lana, Lex?" she tried a different approach, knowing that if she was able to distract him for enough time to allow Clark to come out of unconsciousness that they might both stand a chance of getting out of here alive, "You're going to take care of her the same way you're going to take care of Clark and I then? And Bruce? What about him?"

"Stop trying to change the subject," Lex leveled a glare at her and opened the box he had gotten the kryptonite bullet from earlier. He loaded the gun silently before turning back to her. "But since you're curious, Lana's carrying my child and Bruce has his own reputation to take care of; I know enough about him that he won't be telling anyone about the information he gathered on my fathers death."

"You mean murder," she said defiantly.

He waved a hand uncaringly, "Whatever."

From the floor below her, Clark began to wake up.

Lex raised the gun, "Guess we'd better rush this along. I was hoping Clark would be awake for this but since you got rid of the meteor rock, I guess I can't be choosy."

"No, wait!" she raised her hands, "Please, just…..don't do this."

He opened his mouth to say something that Lois was sure would be both sarcastic and damning but she never got to hear it as suddenly, the doors to the office were flung open and Chloe stepped into the room in a flurry of movement.

Clark was only strong enough to pull Lois to the ground with him, covering her body with his own as a single shot cut through the knowing silence of the room.


	31. Chapter 32

**Chapter 32: The End of the Beginning**

Lois pushed herself out from under Clark, protesting as he tried to prevent her from doing so. Mission accomplished, she moved to a sitting position and looked at the now quiet room, thoroughly confused as to what had just happened-and who had been the one to barge into it, letting off one shot and (if she wasn't mistaken) causing Lex to shoot right back.

"You okay, Lois?"

She looked at him incredulously, "Asks the man who until a moment ago was passed out cold on the carpet. Yeah, I'm fine."

"That was the meteor rock," he shrugged, looking sheepish. He furrowed his brow as flashes of memory started to come back to him, "What happened to Lex?"

She stood up and offered a hand to him, "I'm not sure. He must have….." She trailed off, her eyes widening as she took in with her eyes what had apparently happened.

"Lois?" Clark took the hand she numbly gave him and let her help him up, "Are you oka….? Oh my God."

"Yeah," she murmured heavily as she looked at Lex's body, now on the floor and completely passed out…probably from the bullet lodged in his shoulder if the blood spilling onto the carpet around that area was any indication. Of course it could also have been due to the angle he had fallen back onto the desk with.

Banging a person's head against solid wood was never a good thing for consciousness after all.

"We need to call an ambulance. He's hurt," Clark took a step and faltered as he got closer to Lex, nearly falling down as a wave of dizziness fell over him.

"You mean I need to call an ambulance," she said softly, pushing him down into the chair she had abandoned earlier. "That's a kryptonite bullet in him, Clark, and I don't want you anywhere near it. You're in no shape to deal with it."

She didn't wait for his answer, instead moving across the room to where Lex's phone was, "You know, I have no clue why we're calling an ambulance for a man who held me hostage and put my cousin in the hospital," she picked up the phone and dialed. "It seems a waste to let such a piece of scum live…."

Clark nodded his head and opened him mouth to agree when something out of the corner of his eye got his attention. He narrowed his eyes and craned his head to see around the furniture….and had to stop himself from falling off the chair.

"…I mean," Lois continued, listening as the phone rang. "It's not like I don't think that people like him deserve to live, it's just that I'd like Lex in particular to suffer…."

"Lois…."

"…maybe by a big man in an orange jumpsuit named 'Tiny' who'll make him his bitch…."

"Lois!"

"What?" she looked up at Clark's voice and dropped the phone, her eyes widening in shock.

Clark lifted Chloe's limp hand from the spot her body had fallen when Lex-in retaliation for the bullet she had shot him in the shoulder with-had shot her, and felt for a pulse.

There wasn't one.

He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling as if his greatest nightmare had just come true.

Lois' hand came up to cover her mouth in shock, "Clark, is she…?"

"I don't know," he said heavily and opened his eyes, wincing as the kryptonite bullet lodged in Chloe's chest made him dizzy and more than a little ill. He shouldn't be this close to meteor rock, not after the exposure he had been through that evening but for Chloe he could take a little pain. Besides all that, he needed to get her heart pumping again otherwise whatever window of hope that was left in her would be lost. He bit his lip as a wave of sadness swept over him, blinding him momentarily with tears he wouldn't let fall yet, not when there was a chance that he wouldn't need to shed them, "I'm not getting a pulse."

From the other end of the line, the 911 operator's voice spoke from the phone, tinny and small in its position lying on top of the desk.

Lois stood still, her own eyes watering until they were almost overflowing, watching as Clark began CPR on her cousin.

Hearing the operator's now insistent voice on the other end of the line, Clark looked up as he pumped Chloe's chest, "Lois, we need that ambulance."

"What?" she furrowed her brow, confused.

Clark, in his grief, spoke almost angrily now, "The ambulance, Lois. Pick up the phone and tell that operator that we need an ambulance!"

Startled out of her trance, Lois simply nodded, swiping a few tears off of her cheek and swallowing back a sudden sob as she picked up the phone, "Yes, hello." She watched as Clark continued to do CPR-knowing what it must be doing to him if only because every few breaths he had to stop and catch his own before continuing-and resolved to do her part for Chloe, even if it was just calling 911. With a hoarse voice, she spoke, "I need an ambulance at LuthorCorp. There's been a shooting."

* * *

It was Clark's turn to watch as Lois continued to pace in the waiting room where behind closed doors the doctor's had Chloe in surgery, "Lois, sit down. Worrying yourself to death isn't going to help her."

"Well what else am I supposed to do?" she turned her head and glared at him. "She almost died back there. She still might die. If I had been faster calling that ambulance…." Lois trailed off, fighting back tears that she hadn't yet allowed herself to cry, tears that she wouldn't be crying until she knew for certain that her cousin's fate was sealed.

Clark breathed through his nose before standing up and moving across the room to stand next to Lois, physically stopping her pacing with a well placed but gentle arm around her, "Lois, we did everything we could. Now it's up to the doctor's and Chloe to do the rest."

She bit her lip and leaned into him, "What if it's not, though?"

He didn't answer for a moment, "What do you mean?"

"I mean, what if what happened tonight wasn't something we could control and what if it's not really up to Chloe or the doctor's whether she lives or dies. What if this is the sacrifice we were so worried about?" She moved away slightly, crossing her arms.

Clark let out a deep breath and gave up trying to comfort Lois. He sat down in the chair he had just vacated and watched as she began to pace again, "Okay. If we're playing this game: what if it's not the sacrifice? What if this is just Lex being an evil son of a bitch as usual?"

Lois shook her head and sat down next to Clark, "No. This is too coincidental. I mean, she was in the hospital earlier. What possessed her to follow you to LuthorCorp in the first place?"

"Lois, she was trying to save us. That's what possessed her to come after us in the building," he crossed his arms, "Chloe doesn't think about what will happen when she does things like this. She just does them. I took her home but…..I guess she must have followed me, somehow overpowered the guards and then took one of their guns."

"And then Lex shot her," Lois said in a monotone voice, unwilling to let the anger get the better of her right now otherwise she would march up to the hospital room that Lex was in and smother his in-a-coma body with a pillow.

"Actually, I think she shot him first."

She looked up at him and arched a questioning brow, "Really?"

"Well, he DID say he wanted her conscious, didn't he?"

"Clark, you were out cold, how could you have heard that?"

"I was drifting in and out of consciousness by that point; as soon as you got rid of the kryptonite, I started coming out of it," he mumbled, still embarrassed that his greatest weakness had weakened him so much that he hadn't been able to lift a finger to prevent any of this from happening. If it hadn't been for Chloe bursting into the room when she had, he and Lois would be dead right now.

And Chloe might still be.

He shook his head, not prepared to deal with the anger he was feeling at the moment. Hopefully, he wouldn't have to but if he did, he didn't think he should be doing it here and now, "Anyway, if she shot him first that would explain how he ended up hitting his head on the edge of his desk; the shot must have put him off balance."

Lois simply nodded, and closed her eyes, a wave of helplessness moving over her unexpectedly. She should have been able to do something rather than let Clark drag her onto the floor, or at least that's what she kept going back to.

The fact of the matter, she knew, was that this was how Chloe had wanted it-her cousin and Clark alive and in one piece. If their places had been reversed, Lois would have wanted the same thing.

She was broken out of her thoughts however, as one of the doctors that had wheeled Chloe away hours ago came out into the waiting area.

"How is she?" she didn't waste a moment, standing up and practically ambushing the woman in front of her in her hurry to get answers our of her.

"Ms. Lane, Mr. Kent…" the doctor began, a neutral look on her face, "There were complications; things we didn't anticipate. We had thought that if we took the bullet out we could stop the bleeding but….Chloe began to bleed internally and we couldn't stop it."

Lois felt the tears coming back as she realized what the doctor was trying to say, "So she's….I mean, she….."

"She bled out on the table," the doctor's voice softened. "I'm so sorry."

A stifled sob ripped from Lois' throat and she felt Clark's arms come around her again, trying in vain to comfort her. She heard him murmur something to the doctor and then she was gone.

Lois felt him lead her over to the couch in the corner as the tears continued to come, unhindered by the blind need to stop crying and do something about what had happened. Not that there was anything that could be done about it. Death was something even Lois didn't have the power to reverse and this was what had her heart breaking.

Because Chloe was dead and there was nothing she could do to bring her back.


	32. Chapter 33

**Chapter 33: Goodbye's**

Clark followed Lois into the empty Talon, wearily closing the door behind him. They had buried Chloe today.

He wiped his eyes with his right hand, knowing they were still red from crying at the service, and turned around. Lois was looking at him, her eyes dry and her face emotionless. She raised an eyebrow and tilted her head towards the stairs to her apartment.

Clark closed his eyes briefly, wondering how long this 'ice queen' act of Lois' was going to continue; while he had cried for Chloe this past week, Lois had not done so since that night at the hospital. She was strong, but eventually she had to break and he hoped it would be sooner rather than later...

Lois looked back at Clark and tried to ignore the tears he had just rubbed away, instead turning back towards the staircase and continuing to walk towards it.

She closed her eyes as she reached the foot of the stairs, feeling as Clark's hand came around her waist to follow her up.

"Hey," he murmured, "You okay?"

"Yeah," she nodded and tried to swallow away the lump in her throat she had been fighting all day. The truth of the matter was that she hadn't let herself cry since the night in the hospital a week ago and, with the funeral behind her now she knew she couldn't let herself start again.

If she did, she might not be able to stop.

Energy pulsed through her body, willing her to do something with the grief and the turmoil that she had been pushing away in favor of planning Chloe's funeral, something that she knew hadn't been necessary (her Uncle had been more than capable after all) but that she had wanted to do. Self-proclaimed control freak that she was, she had decided at her mother's funeral that she wouldn't let grief control her again and work allowed her to push it away. That was why, at this particular juncture in her grieving, she was choosing to do nothing with the energy.

Clark's hand tightened around her waist, squeezing lightly, and she let her own hand fall over his, thankful for the silent support but genuinely wishing he wouldn't touch her right now. Truthfully, she was hoping he would leave as soon as they got up to her apartment but she knew that this was probably not going to be the case. He didn't understand her absolute need to control her own feelings but then again, he hadn't grown up with the General. Regardless, he had been there for her this week, letting her lean on him when she needed it and silently letting her bury the grief with work and it was because of this reaction that she knew he wasn't going to go away and let herself fall apart in peace.

She took out her keys and put one in lock, her hand trembling slightly.

Clark's hand came down from behind her and helped her turn the key, somehow knowing without being told that she was starting to lose it despite all her best efforts not to.

Clark helped her open the door, his hand gently guiding her own trembling one and his eyes meeting hers for a split second. He listened as she cleared her throat and blinked suddenly full eyes.

"Thanks," she whispered.

He nodded and followed her into the apartment, "Not a problem."

With a sigh, he closed the door and took off his coat, "Do you want some tea or something?"

"Or something," she murmured unconsciously, slipping her jacket off and setting it over the back of one of the chairs at the kitchen table. For a moment she contemplated asking him to pour her a stiff drink but thought better of it; it wasn't that Clark didn't approve of drinking it was just that he didn't approve of using drinking as an alternative to feeling pain.

Clark raised an eyebrow, breaking her out of her thoughts, "Lois?"

"No," she shook her head, feeling the tears begin to overwhelm her again, "No tea, thanks. I don't….I don't need any of that right now."

"Okay," he shifted past her, taking the time to drop a kiss on her neck before starting to move into the kitchen.

She pulled him back before she could stop herself.

"Lois?" he murmured, searching her eyes for what she was looking for in him right now. Finding the wall she had erected around her grief, he sighed, "Lois, please. Let it out. Just…cry or something. Scream, laugh, whatever….I'm not going to think any less of you and neither would Chloe."

A single tear escaped her eye and she lowered her gaze, anxious to get herself back under control but fearing that she couldn't if he kept looking at her the way he was.

"No," she felt herself give in a bit, wanting so hard to do what he asked of her but not quite being able to. She closed her eyes tight and drew a shuddering breath, "I can't. It hurts too much."

"Oh Lois," he sighed, tilting her head up as he drew her closer to him. To his surprise, she let him…"It hurts to keep it in too, you know."

She opened her eyes but had to close them again to stop the dam from breaking. It DID hurt holding it in but if she let it out, somehow that would make all that had happened real.

He dropped a light kiss on her closed eyes, knowing that there was nowhere for her to hide anymore and hating that fact; he didn't like seeing her in pain.

Against him, the trembling in her hand spread to her whole body in an effort to keep in all that she was feeling. She couldn't breathe, it hurt so much….

"Lois," he tried again, dropping another kiss on her face, and then another, urging her with just her name to let him be strong for her for a change.

She let out a breath and kissed him now, her body leaning in and giving him some of the tension she had been holding.

In relief, he kissed her back and took the pain she offered him, his cheeks wet with the tears she had silently begun to shed.

"I love you," she whispered.

"I love you too," he replied, closing his eyes and resting his forehead gently against hers. Her hands, previously resting on his back moved downwards and his eyes popped open, realizing what she wanted from him by the look in her eye, "Lois, we shouldn't. Now's not the…"

"Please," she shook her head, ignoring her wet cheeks and leaking eyes. She wasn't sobbing yet and therefore, they weren't real tears in her book, "I….I can't do this right now. You're right; it hurts to keep it inside but right now I….I just can't."

He moved a hand down to take one of hers in his but Lois stopped him, her hand coming up to pull his face closer to her lips.

"Clark, please."

He paused a moment, watching as her eyes pleaded with him to make her feel something-anything-beyond the grief that was tearing through her heart. Decision made, he nodded and in a low voice murmured his consent.

She was on him before she could stop herself, drawing his head down for a kiss and feeling as all the grief she had been holding in blessedly began to divert itself into something else. For a moment, she felt as if none of the last week had happened.

"Lois," Clark murmured around her lips, a groan interrupting him as she pulled him closer and simultaneously pushed them both against the kitchen counter.

'Lois apparently wasn't the only one who needed this,' he inwardly reflected as he almost viciously returned the kiss, his own grief over Chloe's death getting the better of him. With the controlled strength he had only recently begun to exhibit, he reversed their positions and lifted her onto the countertop.

Lois, still setting the pace, quickly undid the buttons on his shirt and spread it apart before slipping around his waist.

He took her mouth again and returned the favor, his mouth trailing down her body as he undid the buttons to her blouse. She pulled him down on top of her, leaving enough space for both of them to fumble with the others pants but not enough to get rid of them entirely.

Clark moved back a bit, a move that Lois found unacceptable if the way she groaned in protest was any indication. With swift hands, he stepped all the way back from her and pulled one leg of her pants off of her, watching as she moved to help him before taking off the second leg and coming back to her. Lois pulled him flush against her, spreading her legs apart so that he could settle comfortably between them.

He bit his lip as her hand came between them and began to open the buttons holding up his pants. With a deft hand, she opened them and freed his erection from his briefs.

She stroked him gently and, in retaliation, felt him roughly shove a hand into her underwear and begin to massage her clitoris with his thumb. His index finger slipped into her and crooked upwards pushing firmly into her warmth.

Lois had to bite her lip to keep from screaming as she saws stars in front of her eyes. She ground herself down onto his hand, feeling his shock at how blatantly she was displaying her need for him right now in the sharp breath of air she heard him take in.

Aroused beyond belief by the sounds she was making, he made her panties take the same path her pants had taken to the kitchen floor and touched her in earnest, slipping another finger into her.

Her breath came in short gasps now as she let him touch her, driving her closer to the edge….and then stopped. She cried out in protest and opened the eyes she hadn't realized she had closed….

….and then closed them again as Clark came back to her, filling her roughly with his cock and driving her back into the countertop.

She pulled him back to her and put her arms around his neck, lifting herself up enough to be able to give her better leverage. The angle, mixed with the feeling of his erection inside her finding her g-spot had her crying out as her now bare bottom sat down on the counter top and, with a helpless cry, she came unexpectedly, her orgasm washing over her like a tidal wave.

Tears of pain and pleasure began to fall as she clung to him, her hips moving in time with his own as the waves of pleasure slipped silently over her, blending from her first orgasm into a second and building until she couldn't tell the difference between the sobs of grief and the sobs of ecstasy that were escaping her lips.

Clark rested his cheek against hers as she cried, warm puffs of air that were getting tighter and more noisy resounding in his ear and matching his as he pushed into her, careful to make this as good for her as possible.

The orgasm at the base of his spine built ominously, signaling him with the building pleasure and the pressure that the end was rapidly approaching.

Lois arched against him again, her body erratic now as she neared climax, pushing herself again and again down upon him until she broke.

Clark felt her tighten around him again before a cry ripped through her, the tears turning into torrents as she slid up and down him, milking her own orgasm for all it was worth. He gritted his teeth, a loud groan breaking his lips as her movements pushed him past the point of no return and he came, his orgasm on him like a freight train as he pounded her into the countertop.

* * *

Lois came to herself a moment later and realized that she was still crying and had been throughout the medicinal sex she had just made Clark participate in. She also realized that, in their rush to help each other, they were both still half-dressed, her bare bottom resting on the edge of her countertop and Clark resting between her thighs, his head on her shoulder catching his breath.

She moved a bit, trying to find a more comfortable position now that the heat had faded and the cold of the tile had replaced it.

"Hmmpff," he grunted against her shoulder, protesting the movement. "Give me a minute here, Lois. That was unexpected and you wore me out."

Lois traced the edge of his shoulder and kept her legs around his hips, calming him, "Have I mentioned I love you lately?"

He lifted his head up and wiped away one of the tears that were still falling down her cheeks, "I don't think that counts after sex."

She shrugged, a half–smile quirking her mouth to one side, "It does when the woman's the one to say it. Chloe told me that once."

"Well, if Chloe said so."

"She did," Lois wiped her eyes, feeling a little bit better for-even unconsciously-letting some of her grief out but a little bit worse about what she had to do now in order to move on, "I miss her."

From above her, Clark didn't say a word to this, just rubbed her back soothingly.

She sat up a bit, forcing Clark to move, and cleared her throat. She took a breath through her nose, trying to decide how to best let Clark know what she had decided to do concerning Chloe, her death and, ultimately, what Lois had decided to do with her life now that this unexpected tragedy had happened. It didn't fit with what they had just done together but then again, she had never been one to stick to conventional methods of being in a relationship. With a sigh, she cleared her throat and forced her next words out of her mouth, "I've decided to continue what she was doing before she died."

Still relatively on top of her, Clark went still, "Lois, the man's in a coma."

"I don't care Clark. She didn't get to finish what she started and I want to make sure thatif he ever wakes up, he'll be so buried in evidence that he'll spend the rest of his life in a jail cell," she took a breath, "You saw what he did. You know that I gave him the memory stick and that he put it somewhere we haven't yet found and you also know that he came back here, to my apartment, and destroyed my computer and all of the information I transferred onto it. I need to get that information back so he pays for what he did to Chloe."

She paused, choosing her next words carefully, trying to minimize that pain that she was going to cause.

"And I think I need to do it alone."

Clark raised an eyebrow and decided that this wasn't a conversation he wanted to have while he was still inside of her and pulled out, taking the used condom he had barely found time to put on, off, and tossing it in here trash can before pulling his pants back on, "Lois, what are you trying to say? You know that you and I are….."

She sat up and took the pair of panties he held out to her, "…destined? Fated? Whatever that means?"

"I was going to say a team actually," he looked at her, unsure of how to react to what she had said to him. He cleared his throat, "Is this the grief talking? Because if it's not, then I don't know what to say to that."

"You're not supposed to," she slipped her underwear on and hopped off the countertop, "It's just….I think I need to do this alone."

He looked at her incredulously before shaking his head, "No. You're not thinking straight."

"Yeah, I am, Clark. Straighter than I have in a long time."

He eyed her carefully and sat down on one of the barstools on the other side of the counter, "I'm not letting you do this."

"I have to."

"No you don't!" he stood up, confused about how they had gotten to this point. "Chloe wouldn't want you to be…to be avenging her death this way especially when the man who did this to her is as good as dead himself. He's not going to hurt any one in a coma, Lois, and the doctor's don't think he's going to be waking up anytime soon."

"Doesn't matter," she shook her head, "This shouldn't have happened. Lara said it wasn't going to happen."

"Lois," he sighed wearily, completely shocked by where this evening had headed. "Sometimes we're not supposed to know why these things happen. Sometimes they just do and nothing we can do or say, or wish away can make that any better."

She cleared her throat, "I can't believe that. Not after all the research we did about the tattoo on her ankle. She should be alive right now. But somehow she's not and Lex is. Seriously, if anyone deserved to die in that room it was Lex, not Chloe."

"Agreed," he nodded, "But I don't see why it has to mean that you and I need to go our separate ways."

"But it does," she argued. "Chloe's death wasn't just a death, Clark, it was a message. She was the sacrifice but what was the reason for it? So that you and I could carry on, business as usual? Me helping you towards a destiny that you really don't need my help with and in the meantime lose myself in the process?"

"Is that…." He couldn't look at her, "Is that what you think that we do to each other?"

"In a way?" her tone forced him to meet her eyes, "Yeah. It's not that we're not good for each other; we are, it's just that…..I can't let Chloe's death mean nothing and if I let Lex get away with it-even in a coma-than that's exactly what it will mean-nothing."

He cleared his throat, not touching the topic of their destinies if only to keep his anger and frustration in check. She was right, at least in a way, and he knew that; they WERE stunting each other's potential in a way-hers as a journalist-or would be journalist if all went well, and his with the man who he would be. . With this in mind, he changed the subject slightly, "Well, maybe we interpreted the translation wrong. Maybe…."

She looked up at him and narrowed her eyes, "Maybe nothing. We did the translation correctly. You checked, I checked and more importantly, I think that Lara would have mentioned if the path to your destiny was stained with Chloe's blood."

Lois winced as soon as the words were out of her mouth, "God, I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry…"

"No," he shook his head, knowing that despite the harshness of her words, they were true. "You're right; besides, you've said everything else on your mind tonight, why not that?"

"Clark," her voice cracked. She really didn't want to leave but the current circumstances as well as the accelerated timeline they had embarked upon had made it necessary. It wasn't just his destiny she was looking out for anymore, it was her own too, "Don't think that I want to do this; I have to. We'll be together again someday, just not now."

He came forward, grabbing her shoulders and spinning her around to face him. "Lois, I love you. Doesn't that matter?"

"Of course it does," a tear escaped her eye before she could stop it. "I love you too. That's why I'm doing this."

He looked her in the eye, searching for a trace of reason that he could latch onto and talk her out of what she apparently wanted to do and didn't find it. With a sigh, he nodded, "Then I guess that's that, decision made."

He began to button the dress shirt he still wore but paused mid-way as a thought popped into his head, "Lois, is Lara making you do this…."

"No," Lois shook her head, "She isn't making me do this. She may have shown me part of the future but I'm the one making the decisions with how it's going to end up. Neither of us are ready for this. Can you honestly tell me that you're ready for the role Lara described? To save people on a regular basis? Or to fall into a permanent relationship with me? To have children with me? Cause I don't think you are and that's what's supposed to happen. God, I don't think I am." She stood back, "Once this gets put into motion…there's no way to stop it. And I've got to tell you Clark, that's what I want to happen. I want you to save those people and I want to have your children and….be with you….but as much as I love you, we are both too unprepared, selfish and immature for that to happen now."

She cleared her throat, "And I, despite what you may think about it, have to make Lex pay for what he did. It's not vengeance, not the way you think it'll be; it's closure."

He nodded again and sat down on one of the bar stools, thinking. She had just essentially broken up with him, but he couldn't fault her reasons nor the circumstances for coming to the conclusions that she had; she was more than just the person that would help him reach his destiny and he knew that if that's all she did, then that's all that she would end up being and he hated that. And, in a way, he was glad she had brought it up first because he was certain he wouldn't have had the strength to let go.

"Clark?" Lois sat down next to him, now fully clothed again.

He looked at her and gave her a reassuring half-smile, "If you do this, you promise me that we'll keep in contact?"

"Every day," she murmured. "You're not getting rid of me that easily, Smallville."

"Good," he stood up, "So you won't mind if I choose to spend as much time with you now as I can before you go out there and try to drown Lex in evidence?"

"Clark…."

He shook his head, failing to cover his irritation that she had made a decision this big seemingly out of the blue. He understood it but he still hated it, "I'm sorry, I just….I don't understand why you feel the need to do this but since you seem to have a good reason, I have no choice but to respect it. It's frustrating."

"It's life," she mused, looking down for a moment before looking up again.

He moved closer and leaned forward, his breath husky as it spoke close to her face, "Doesn't mean I have to like it."

"No," Lois spoke quietly, thinking of her cousin now, "But if Chloe's life was put down in sacrifice for something you or I are going to do, then it's worth it."

Clark went silent, thinking about this, and then…."But are we worth it, Lois?"

She met his eyes and thought about the life that Lara had showed her-the life where Clark helped save people on daily basis, where their daughter played with her dollhouse on some carpet floor in a house they would one day buy together. She nodded, a knowing smile on her face as she thought about their future, "Yeah, Clark. I think we are."


	33. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

**Five Years Later**

"Clark?"

He took in a deep breath, his head jerking up as he abruptly roused himself from his slumber, "Yeah?"

Chloe let out a laugh and pushed him a bit harder, sitting down in the chair next to him, "Wake up. You fell asleep."

"I didn't," he blinked sleepy eyes at her, "I was just resting my eyes for a bit."

"Otherwise known as sleeping," she grinned knowingly at him and glanced at the bed across the room. "Well, I don't blame you. I hear you guys had a busy night. Or Lois did at any rate."

He narrowed his eyes at her, "I was in India, Chloe, rescuing people. It's not like I can carry a cell phone in that suit."

"Well you made it at least."

"With two hours to spare," Clark winced as he remembered the scene he had walked into-Lois-in the middle of a contraction, his mother at her side-had immediately demanded to know where he had been and then (even before he had been able to tell her) proceeded to verbally malign his manhood for getting her pregnant in the first place.

His mother, unable to contain her amusement at the scene in front of her, had wished Clark luck and then left the room to give them some privacy.

Chloe shot him a knowing look, "How badly did she hurt you for being late?"

He looked at her, "Physically or verbally?"

She raised an eyebrow, "Physically?"

He shrugged and flexed his hand, feeling the tug of newly healed muscles, "Side effect. The last month she's had almost as much strength as I have."

"Ouch. Where'd she get you?"

"Just my hand and that healed soon after she let go. The words however," a small smile quirked up the corner of his mouth, "Will stay with me forever. I had no idea she could swear like that."

"That's Lois," Chloe let out a small chuckle.

"Able to drink Russian Generals under the table while simultaneously out-swearing them in their native language," he shook his head, "Tell me if I'm wrong but I think I wear the skirt in our relationship."

"You certainly wear the tights."

Clark shot her a dirty look, "I can make you leave, you know."

"Before meeting my niece?" she teased gently, "And I thought your father was joking when he told me how overprotective you already were."

He stood up, a twinkle in his eye, "Dad exaggerates," he helped her up and walked quietly toward the bassinette sitting next to Lois' bed where she was currently sound asleep, "But not by much."

He looked down and smiled as Madeline-only six hours old how- opened her eyes and looked up.

"She's beautiful, Clark," Chloe breathed out.

"Just like her mother," he murmured and picked the baby up. "Do you want to hold her?"

Chloe looked at him, alarmed, "Are you sure?"

"I think Maddy would love to be held by the woman she's getting her middle name from," Clark smiled, catching the look of surprise that suddenly sprung into her face. He and Lois had debated long and hard over what to name their daughter and, while they had agreed that she needed a first name that hadn't belonged to someone either of them had lost at some point in their lives, they hadn't been able to come to a conclusion regarding her middle name until Chloe's name had come up.

Chloe looked at him, gauging how serious he was, "Really?"

He let the look go after a second, a grin climbing onto his face as he handed her the baby, "If you'll let us."

Chloe looked down at the newborn and smiled. She shook her head, "No, really?"

He was laughing now, "Yes, really. This was a big decision that Lois and I made. If you say no now then we're just going to have to go back to the drawing board and I don't know about you but I'd rather avoid that argument."

"Well, if it will help you out," she shrugged, her eyes still on her niece, "I'd be honored."

"Good," he reached down to push the blanket Madeline was wrapped in aside.

Chloe looked over her shoulder at him, "I just don't see how you decided on my name. You had such a long list."

"We thought it was appropriate that we chose yours," he murmured, not taking his eyes off of his daughter, "Since you were so important to both of us."

She furrowed her brow questioningly, "Were?"

"Were, are….. Chloe," he said, taking the baby back and setting her gently into the bassinette before continuing. Chloe always reacted badly when he got to this part and he didn't want the baby getting in the way. "You're dead. You have been for five years."

He pointed down to her sweater- the same sweater that had just begun to leak blood down her front.

She rolled her eyes and waved a hand over the area. The gunshot wound that always appeared when they started on this subject disappeared, taking the blood and the stain it would have left on her shirt with it, "I hate it when that happens. See? I'm not dead, Clark."

"Yeah, you are. We saw you get shot and then…." He ran a hand through his hair, "Chloe, you bled out on the operating table. You know this….."

"No, I don't know that because it didn't happen," she shook her head and smiled knowingly. She leaned in closer now, as if to tell him a secret. "I'm not really dead."

He breathed out a frustrated breath. She never believed him….."But you are. We buried you- YOU you, not just a bunch of rocks. No fakes this time, I checked."

She shook her head and began to back out of the room, done with Clark for the moment, "You know more than anyone that appearances can often be deceiving. There may have been a body but are you sure it was mine?"

"What's that supposed to mean? It was you," he went to follow her out of the room but stopped as Lois stirred in her bed and called his name. He looked back to Chloe, "Wait. Would you just……..you can't leave now! You need to tell me what that means."

"It means," she paused at the door, shooting a pointed look in his direction, "That maybe I'm not who you think I am anymore."

Lois called out to him again and he turned, "Just a second Lois. I'll be right there….." he turned back to the door, ready to question Chloe further for what she meant by her last words.

In all the previous dreams he had had of her, she had never told him what she had just told him. Sure, she had argued that she wasn't dead, couldn't be because why would she have been talking to him then, but she had never told him that she was still alive. He opened his mouth to speak and looked in the direction she had just walked but she was already gone.

* * *

Clark was startled awake by Lois' voice. He sat up in the chair he had fallen asleep in hours ago and shook out his stiff shoulders, marveling at how alike hospital chairs were in how they made a person's back feel. He would have thought that, of anywhere, the Swann Institute would have provided better chairs….

"Look who's awake," Lois said teasingly, her attention on the baby in her arms-quiet now that she was currently being fed breakfast. She furrowed her brow as she looked at the confused face her husband was making. "You alright, Clark?"

"Yeah," he nodded, and stood up, really looking around the room for the first time since he had arrived hours ago. He would give the Swann Institute credit where it was due, what they lacked in chairs, they more than made up for in beds and décor, "I'm fine. I just had a really weird dream."

"Funny weird or 'weird' weird?" she repositioned herself back against the pillows and adjusted the baby in her arms, patting the left hand side of the king size bed the nurses had moved her into after the birth.

"'Weird' weird," he stepped closer and sat down in the spot she had motioned him towards.

She froze. Weird dreams were never a good thing but even more so when they happened to Clark, "Prophecy weird or 'this-is-clearly-a-dream-because-it's-so-bizarre' weird?"

He rubbed a hand across his eyes, "I don't know. It was so real. Kind of bizarre too now that you mention it…" he paused, "Chloe was in it."

Lois pursed her lips thoughtfully and lowered her eyes. That wasn't as weird as he would think; she had dreams about Chloe all the time-and she knew for a fact that Clark did too, "What was she doing in your dream?"

"Congratulating us," he shrugged, "And truthfully, I was kind of expecting her to show up in one of my dreams again. I know she's a figment of my imagination but she always seems to know when big things happen to me," he cleared his throat, remembering the long conversation he had had with her the night before he married Lois-a year to he day that he had come back to Metropolis and been made her partner at the Daily Planet. With a sigh, he continued, "I told her how we were naming Maddy."

"And what'd she say to that?" she raised an eyebrow, remembering the debate that had followed their mutual suggestion that their daughter be named after her dead cousin. Both she and Clark had questioned whether it was wise to saddle their unborn offspring with such an important name-even if it was just her middle name. As soon as she had been born though, they had looked at her and the name had just seemed to fit.

Clark let out a short chuckle, "She thought we were making a mistake actually."

Lois scowled, "Of course she would say that; it's Chloe. She hated things like that."

"Is THAT why we named our daughter after her then?" he relaxed back into the bed, looking over his wife's shoulders at his daughter.

Lois shrugged and turned her head to look at him, "She sacrificed her life to save us. It seems a fitting tribute."

"That she wouldn't have wanted."

"If she were alive, she'd get used to it. She's not though so it really doesn't matter, now does it? Besides, her full name is Madeline Chloe Lane-Kent, Not Chloe Madeline Lane-Kent like your mother suggested," she paused and suddenly frowned, taking in the look still on Clark's face, "That dream really messed with your head, didn't it?"

He looked down at his hands and nodded, thinking about whether to tell Lois what he Chloe had told him. In the end, he chose not to, instead settling with a neutral response, "It was more than a little unsettling if that's what you're asking."

"It wasn't, but I'll take what I can get," she sighed. "Clark, you were tired and you haven't been getting much sleep lately. It's no wonder that you're having weird dreams, especially considering what you came back from India to."

He snorted lightly, a teasing tone in his voice, "Yeah, you want to page me the next time you go into labor? A little warning would have been nice."

She shot him a pointed look and moved the baby to her other breast, remembering her Lamaze coach's recommendations concerning breast-feeding. "How was I supposed to know that the back ache I had was labor? It didn't even hurt that badly; at least not as badly as all the doctors told me it should have. Honestly, I had no clue what was happening until I stood up and my water broke."

He shook his head, remembering the near interrogation she had given the Lamaze instructor concerning the signs of labor and what she should expect. In the end it seemed that the adjustments Lara had made to her body years ago had made labor and delivery something much different than what Lois had been expecting, "I'm just glad my parents plane came in when it did otherwise you would have been alone."

She rolled her eyes again, "Clark, I would have been fine; there were doctor's a block away 24/7 remember? And I could have paged them just as well as your Mom could have."

"Still, I'm sorry I didn't get there as soon as I should have," he said, knowing that Lois had a point. For the past two weeks they had been living in an apartment near the Swann Institute while they waited for the baby to be born and Lois-as per the younger Dr. Swann's instructions-had been looked at by one of the aforementioned doctor's at least once a day.

It was funny how he still felt guilty though….

Lois placed a hand gently over Clark's and squeezed, knowing without him saying more than he had that he still felt badly that he couldn't have been in two places at one time, "It's okay. The point is you got here. And next time I'll make sure to page you or something although where you're going to keep it in that suit of yours I have no idea. Maybe we could get Martha to sew a pocket into it. Oh! We could get you a utility belt."

He shot her an almost insulted look, "Do I look like Batman to you?"

She raised an eyebrow, "Hey, don't complain unless you're willing to find a solution to the problem, Mister. It's okay now but when it happens again, I want you here for the whole thing, not just the last two hours and if a utility belt is what makes it happen then I'm all for it."

"I'll keep that in mind," he wrapped an arm gently around Lois and stared down at his daughter, watching as she looked at him out of the corner of her eye. He raised an eyebrow as parts of what she had just said drifted back to him. "Next time?"

"Caught that, did you? Took you a moment….."

"Yeah, I'm slow that way. Next time?"

She let her head fall back onto his shoulder and sighed, "Well, I'm not saying we're doing this again immediately; I have a career to worry about too, you know. I'm just saying that Maddy might like a sister or brother someday and two or three years is a good age gap."

Clark smiled into Lois' hair and dropped a light kiss on her forehead, "I'll keep that in mind too, then."

"Do so," she let out a soft sigh and let him support her on the bed, leaning back until she couldn't tell where his body ended and hers began. She felt Madeline snuggle into her arms a little deeper as she fell asleep, her lips falling from Lois' breast as sleep became a bigger priority than food. With one hand, she reached down and adjusted her nightgown to cover herself.

Clark began to slide out from behind her, ready to put the baby into her bassinette so Lois could get some more sleep. She stopped him with a hand though and he stopped, instead moving so that he was lying down on the bed, his head supported by the pillows and Lois' head on his shoulder.

From her chest, Madeline breathed deeply, and spread out a bit on top of her mother.

"It's like she knows we're both here," Lois murmured, not wanting to wake her daughter up from such a deep slumber.

"Yeah," he drew his arm tighter around the two of them and smiled, listening to Lois breath as she too fell asleep.

He only stopped listening when he followed her.

* * *

From across the country, a woman shot up in bed, eyes wide and breathing quickly.

"Are you okay?" her companion murmured huskily from beside her.

"Yeah Bruce," she rubbed a hand across her forehead, "Just a dream."

Bruce Wayne sat up in his bed and pulled her close to him, "Are you going to be okay or do you need me to go get you some hot milk?"

"Oh yuck. No thanks, I'll pass."

"You don't like warm milk?"

She paused, trying to think of whether she did or didn't, "I don't know. I think I don't like it."

"Then you probably don't," he dropped a kiss on her shoulder.

She turned her head to look at him, "Just hold me, okay? I think that'll be enough to get me to sleep."

He kissed her again, this time on the forehead, "Okay."

She let herself be pulled back down into the bed and felt him settle in behind her, quickly dropping off to sleep. It wasn't until a half an hour later that she followed, still wondering why she kept having dreams where everyone called her 'Chloe.'

**The End**


End file.
